Borchardt needs surgery to repair his broken wrist

PHILADELPHIA — Yet more bad news for Curtis Borchardt, the Jazz's hard-luck rookie center.

A CT scan performed Saturday showed Borchardt will need surgery to repair his broken right wrist, Jazz trainer Gary Briggs said Sunday.

The reason: "The radius (the thumb-side forearm bone) was fractured through the joint line," Briggs said.

A plate likely will be surgically inserted in the wrist to close the gap in the radius, helping enable the joint on Borchardt's shooting hand to properly pivot.

Briggs said that means Borchardt, who was hurt trying to break his fall after going up for a layup attempt in Friday night's Delta Center loss to Sacramento, will be out two to three weeks longer than the six weeks Jazz officials initially had hoped.

Surgery likely will be performed later this week, perhaps by a hand specialist from the University of Utah.

In addition to the crack in the radius, Borchardt fractured his ulna, which is the forearm bone that runs from the tip of the elbow to the little-finger side of the wrist.

It's just another setback among many for Borchardt, who already is held together by hardware.

The Stanford product missed all of last season due to pin-replacement surgery in his twice stress-fractured right foot and the first four games of this season due to a fracture of the index finger on his left, non-shooting hand.

Cracked Briggs: "You don't want to be going to the airport with him."

Meanwhile, the Jazz played Philadelphia on Sunday with just 11 healthy players on their active roster.

Big man Michael Ruffin remains out and on the injured list with a strained abdominal muscle and doubts he will be able to return when the Jazz play next, Tuesday night at Washington.

But Briggs said Ruffin "had a really good workout" Saturday and that he may be ready to make his Jazz debut sometime on Utah's current six-game trip, which is now just one game old.

"It's definitely getting better," said Ruffin, who played 15 games for the 76ers in the 2001-02 NBA season. "The key will be whether it gets worse (today). That's what the problem's been — I've been able to play for a couple of (different) days, but it's consistently playing for a few days straight that really starts the problem."

NUMBERS GAME: Speaking of ex-Sixers, Jazz small forward Matt Harpring and swingman Raja Bell both also played that '01-02 season here in Philly.