Raja Bell, injured late in the Suns' playoff run last season after tearing his left calf, aggravated the injury again in late June, was unable to do any running in July and was well into August before he was finally cleared for basketball activities.
"I anticipated being ready to go much earlier. It was pretty frustrating," Bell said. "I was home, thinking it would heal on its own. But there was a lot of scar tissue in there, and when I tried to get back on it ? there was just no way. It was still hurting quite a bit."
ell was shut down for all of July and finally gave the calf a test run during an early August trip to Switzerland for a basketball camp, and is now running without pain.
"I'm careful to get everything stretched out before and after, but it doesn't affect me when I play," he said. "More than anything, it just slowed down my summer. We had to cancel a lot of trips, and I didn't spend the time I wanted in the gym. I would have been working a lot harder."