Blake Griffin hurt his hand in an altercation with a member of the Los Angeles Clippers' staff on the team's current road trip and will be sidelined just as he was nearing a return from another injury.Danny Moloshok/The Associated Press
Blake Griffin will be out for as long as six weeks with a broken shooting hand after punching a Los Angeles Clippers staff member during a road trip.
The star forward underwent a procedure and was treated by an orthopedic surgeon after returning early to Los Angeles from a five-game road trip, the team said Tuesday. He has a spiral fracture of the fourth metacarpal in his right hand.
The Clippers play at Indiana on Tuesday night.
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and coach Doc Rivers, who is also president of basketball operations, said Griffin threw the punch last Saturday in Toronto.
"This conduct has no place in our organization and this incident does not represent who we are as a team," Ballmer and Rivers said in a joint statement. "We are conducting a full investigation with assistance from the NBA. At the conclusion of the investigation, appropriate action will be taken."
Griffin had X-rays Monday and his recovery is expected to last four to six weeks, meaning he will miss the All-Star game Feb. 14 in Toronto, where he could have been picked as a reserve.
The hand fracture comes just as Griffin was nearing a return from another injury. He has been out since Dec. 26 with a partially torn left quadriceps tendon.
The Clippers are 11-3 in Griffin's absence and in second place with a 28-16 record in the Pacific Division.
Last fall, Griffin was involved in a fight in a Las Vegas nightclub. A man accused him of taking his cellphone and grabbing him after the man photographed Clippers players inside the club. The misdemeanour battery case later was dropped after prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence.