SACRAMENTO, California. Kings' forward Shareef Abdur-Rahim returned to action Thursday night against the Los Angeles Lakers with his jaw wired shut, and team officials say they will follow his situation closely to ensure that he is not endangering himself by playing.
Abdur-Rahim broke his jaw less than a month ago in a collision with Portland's Zach Randolph, and his Sacramento teammates praised him for his gutsy return to action. "Lot of guys with a name like his would have declared jihad on the whole Trailblazers' team," said Kings' guard Mike Bibby. "I think he deserves some credit for keeping his cool."
Abdur-Rahim said he was only doing his job and that he owed it to his teammates to get back into action. "Glz uzfez muz szufzz rzz awuzyz," he said with a smile as big as he could manage under the circumstances.
Basketball commentator Charles Barkley said jaw-wiring could have helped him keep his weight down during his career with the Sixers and the Suns, and to avoid costly lawsuits as well. "Some guy comes up to you in a restaurant and calls you 'Round Mound of Rebound' or 'Pizza King', it's only natural you throw him through a plate-glass window, right?"
NBA officials say they will monitor Abdur-Rahim's progress to see if the jaw-wiring procedure should be used more widely. "It is something we are looking into," said league spokesman Thomas Cranwell. "If we can prevent just one Ron Artest rap CD, it will be worth it."
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
