When the Jazz spent most of the past week at training camp in Boise, Matt Harpring was rehabbing his surgically repaired and subsequently infected ankle with training specialists in Santa Barbara, Calif.

When the Jazz scrimmaged Saturday afternoon at EnergySolutions Arena, he was sitting in a chair along the baseline.

When the Jazz open their 2008-09 NBA regular season Oct. 29 against the Denver Nuggets, Harpring has no idea where he'll be.

In fact, the Jazz's backup small forward suggested, he isn't sure whether he'll play at all in any of Utah's seven preseason games — the first of which comes Tuesday night in Anaheim vs. the Los Angeles Lakers.

"I don't know. We'll see how it goes," Harpring said Saturday. "I can't say. It depends on how quickly it gets better.

"If it all-of-a-sudden jumps and makes a great stride, then maybe. But if it doesn't, then I've just got to keep banging away. It's frustrating, obviously. But there's nothing I can do about it. It is what it is. I've just got to keep working hard, and doing what I can do. "My goal is as soon as possible," the 32-year-old added. "I would love to play the last couple weeks of October, but I don't know if that's a realistic goal. It's hard to say."

Harpring developed a strep infection shortly after having bone spurs removed from his right ankle in late June.

He was hospitalized for several days in early July, and his training schedule hasn't been anything close to normal since.

But going to Santa Barbara rather than Boise seems to have helped, as now Harpring — though he sat out the open-to-the-public scrimmage — is back with the team.

"(The past) week was a good week," he said. "If I can just keep getting better and better, things will be good."

The key: "just getting used to trusting the ankle again, and flexibility — my motion."

"When you get an infection in there, it just scars everything up. ... You lose all kind of power. It's painful. It gets you non-athletic real quick," he said. "So I've got to get my mobility back. I'm close. I think I'm five degrees from getting my (full) mobility back. Then once that comes back, the strength and everything — trusting it — that becomes an issue too."

In Harpring's absence, reserve swingman C.J. Miles has been trying to earn minutes behind starter Andrei Kirilenko. Starting shooting guard Ronnie Brewer could slide over and also see boosted minutes as a result.

In the meantime, the gritty Harpring — who has a long history of injuries, yet has played in 71 or more games each of the past four seasons — deals with what he knows will be no overnight recovery. And when he is ready to return, he knows he'll be playing with pain.

"It's an intense deal down there," Harpring said.

"I'm not gonna wake up tomorrow and be like, "Oh, I'm good,"' he added. "It's going to be a gradual thing."

---

E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com