Injuries and the Clippers curse

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The Clippers, still winless this season, are unlikely to see Baron Davis on the court tonight against Utah, although there’s some hope the Clips’ other big off-season pickup, Marcus Camby, will finally make his debut.

Clearly, for the Clippers to have any chance to make the playoffs this season, they need BD and Camby in their lineup; the problem is both players have a history of injury-riddled seasons.

Let’s start with Davis, the No. 3 pick in the 1999 NBA draft, now in his 10th season. The NBA regular season is 82 games long and in his nine previous campaigns Davis played every game four different seasons, including his first three seasons with Charlotte. Davis also

played 82 games last year with the Warriors. But in between that span he also missed 32 games one season, 15 the next, 36, 28 and 19. Now he’s battling a sore left hip to go with a sprained finger.

All told, Davis has missed nearly 18% of the games in his NBA career. That’s not exactly injury-prone, but it’s not Cal Ripken-esque, either.

Unfair you say? Let’s check the durability of two other NBA guards in Davis’ draft class: Andre Miller, now with Philadelphia, and Jason Terry, with Dallas. Total regular seasons games played: Miller 736, Terry 728. Davis has played 610.

As for Camby, former NBA defensive player of the year, he suffered so many injuries when he played for Denver that basketball website boxxet.com set up a separate posting of ‘Marcus Camby injuries’ for its readers.

Camby, now fighting a bruised right heal, is in his 13th NBA season. All told, he’s missed 23% of his teams’ games during that span. In fact, in his previous nine seasons, Camby played in more than 70 games only twice.

-- Barry Stavro