Sonics Give Hurt Rookie A Workout

Seattle SuperSonics rookie James Cotton went through his first workout of the regular season Wednesday. He suffered a sprained right knee on Oct. 14.

Cotton is not quite ready to come off the injured list, but Wednesday’s workout was encouraging for both Cotton and Sonics coach George Karl, who would like to have Cotton play soon.

Since suffering the knee sprain in an exhibition game against Detroit, Cotton has been able to perform only some dribbling and shooting drills with coaches. But Karl had Cotton scrimmage full court for about 30 minutes Wednesday, as well as run through some of the offensive and defensive schemes.

“It was fun,” Cotton said. “I was dunking and stuff, running up and down the court, getting acclimated to the plays. Hopefully pretty soon I will be ready. I’m just excited to start playing.”

Technically, Cotton could be removed from the injured list immediately so that Jerome Kersey, who will be out with a fractured foot for six to eight weeks, can be placed on the list.

First, however, Karl said he would like to see how Cotton’s knee responds Thursday to yesterday’s workout.

“It will be interesting to see if he has any soreness,” Karl said.

Also, Karl said he saw no reason for the Sonics to make any moves until they need to be made for the good of the team. For now, the Sonics will operate with 11 players.

“I don’t think we will do anything on the (injured) list until one of them can help us play,” Karl said. “My gut feeling is I would like to see (Cotton) fall into an opportunity to play in a period of time. I don’t know what that is. Is that 10 games? is that 20 games? Is that 10 minutes a game? When that comes, I can’t predicate. It might come with schedule, it might come with injury, it might come with, I’ll just do it.”

If the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Cotton does get playing time, it likely would be limited behind Hersey Hawkins and Dale Ellis at shooting guard or Detlef Schrempf and David Wingate at small forward.