Harpring on mend after surgery

MURRAY — Utah Jazz forward Matt Harpring had another knee surgery last week, a minor one, and he is upbeat about the results, even though he's spent the last week on crutches with his right knee wrapped up while trying to conduct his kids camp at Murray's Park Center.

"You never know," Harpring said about his knee, on which he has had two microfracture surgeries in 2004 and 2005.

"But they went in and said this is the best my knee has looked, so I'm kind of happy."

Harpring had arthroscopic surgery last Wednesday to clean out scar tissue in his knee, which he said bothered him during the last season. "I could feel it; it was prohibiting the range of motion. Honestly, it needed to be done."

Dr. Richard Steadman, who performed the earlier microfracture surgeries, looked at a recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of Harpring's knee. "He just said, 'I see a lot of scar tissue in there' and said, 'I think it's going to really help the pain in your knee if we take it out.'

"I'm all for it, so we got it done," Harpring said. "It's actually not that bad. I've got this (moving his crutches and pointing to the bandage on his knee) for another day. I had it done Wednesday. After a week I let my crutches go and start rehab."

Harpring told Jazz senior vice president of basketball operations Kevin O'Connor about his planned surgery early last week, and O'Connor said his understanding is, "He should be back running between six and eight weeks and be ready for training camp (Oct. 1) full-speed. It was a minor procedure."

Harpring played in 77 regular-season and 17 playoff games last season, averaging 25.5 minutes per game.

NOT MUCH: O'Connor said there hasn't been much progress regarding whether the Jazz will buy out for $500,000 the contract second-round draft choice Kyrylo Fesenko from his Ukrainian team.

However, O'Connor said that lack of progress regarding the 7-foot-1 20-year-old is not disconcerting. "In fact, I think there's a spirit of cooperation with everyone," he said of negotiations between the Ukraine, the Jazz and agent Jason Levien of Miami Beach, Fla.

"There's not an urgency," O'Connor said about these talks, adding, "Certainly, we'd like to keep talking about it," which is happening. He said negotiating to get Fesenko into town for last month's Rocky Mountain Revue summer-league play "was urgent," but this can proceed at a slower pace.

Utah could buy out the contract and put Fesenko, a promising project, on its 15-man roster for next season and either keep him with the Jazz or send him to the Orem Flash to learn the American pro game, or it could leave him in the Ukraine for another season, though his buyout next year is $1 million.

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E-mail: lham@desnews.com