Bogues Out Of The Lineup Hornets Guard Struggles With Nagging Knee Injury

For nine years, he’s endeared himself to NBA crowds by showing there’s a place in the league for a 5-foot-3 point guard. Now a bum knee is doing what basketball’s top players can’t: Contain Muggsy Bogues.

The Charlotte Hornets on Friday placed Bogues on the injured list for the third time this season because of soreness in his left knee, which has been slow to recover from off-season surgery. The move came after Bogues was able to play only 8 minutes in Thursday night’s 119-105 victory over Dallas.

After the game, reporters swarmed around the locker stall of rookie point guard Anthony Goldwire, who had made his first start for the Hornets and responded with 20 points and 15 assists.

Two stalls away, Bogues dressed quietly, occasionally dabbing at his reddened eyes with a towel as he tried to come to terms with his latest setback.

“It’s playing with my mind,” he said. “I can’t go out there and feel like a rookie. I just don’t feel comfortable on the floor.”

When Bogues had arthroscopic surgery on the knee in August, the team’s medical staff said he likely would be ready for the regular season.

“I thought that’s what it was going to take in the beginning - I would just miss training camp,” Bogues said. “And here it is March. Still, I’ve gotten a lot of improvement just to get to the point where I am now. But it isn’t quite there. It’s not there where I can go out there and play the game, play it like I want to play.”

Bogues spent the season’s first 46 games on the injured list, then returned four contests before soreness in the knee landed him back on the injured list. He came back this week, but lasting just two games.

His season totals are six games, 77 minutes, 14 points, 19 assists, six turnovers and two steals.

It’s a maddening set of numbers for a player who came into the season as the Hornets’ career leaders in assists and steals, and hoping to improve his scoring average for the sixth consecutive year.

Bogues’ game has always been about speed and tenacity, two qualities that have made him by far the most popular Hornet among fans. But a knee that keeps stiffening up is robbing him of the abilities that have enabled him to keep competing against much larger players.

Coach Allan Bristow said the Hornets aren’t sure what else can be done to help Bogues recover from the surgery, which was described as a cleanout procedure. The latest stint on the injured list means Bogues will be out of the lineup for at least the next five games.

“It will give him 13 days of rest,” Bristow said. “We’ll see what happens after five games, and we’ll go from there.”

Even if he’s healthy, Bogues, 31, figures to be no more than a reserve for Charlotte, which earlier this season acquired Kenny Anderson, 25, in a trade. The Hornets signed Goldwire, 24, to a 10-day contract in January, and they were so impressed with the former member of the CBA’s Yakima Sun Kings that they signed him for the remainder of the season.

Bogues isn’t thinking about his long-term future in the NBA. He’s concentrating on the final seven weeks of this season.

Bogues said he wants to use the next 13 days to “kind of just keep pushing, keep doing what I’m doing and not really just give up on the season. I’m not ready to give up on it yet. But it’s pretty damn close. I just can’t keep going through this - just going on the injured list, coming off the injured list. It’s not doing anybody any good.”