Matt Harpring, a former high school quarterback, plays basketball with a football mentality.He hurls his body all over place. If he gets hurt, he just rubs some dirt on his injury. OK, with dirt hard to find in a basketball arena, perhaps he rubs chalk on it.
With that in mind, it's no surprise the injury-riddled Utah Jazz forward doesn't want to retire.
"I would love to play (this season),'' Harpring, 33, said in an interview Friday with FanHouse. "I would love to play until I'm 50.''
But some of that might be out of his hands. Harpring said he will have his Jazz physical on Monday, and doctors will have a say in whether he can continue to play.
"We'll see once I get up there,'' Harpring said from his offseason home in Atlanta about going to Salt Lake City. "We'll have some MRIs and I'll talk to (doctors)... There's been talk over the past couple of years of whether I'm going to play (the next season).''
That's because Harpring, who had wondered after last season whether he would be able to play another campaign, would be first-team All-NBA at forward if it came down to naming the most banged-up players this decade. Phoenix's Grant Hill would man the other forward spot.
"I've had two micofractures on four different spots,'' said Harpring, saying he's had two microfracture surgeries and two arthroscopic surgeries on his right knee. "I've had probably 15 surgeries on (both) ankles... Well, maybe 10 or 11.''
The worst moment for Harpring came in July 2008 when he had surgery on his right ankle. An infection set in, and Harpring was worried at first it could be life threatening.
"I was in the hospital for five days, and they didn't know at first what it was,'' Harpring said. "They thought it could be MRSA, which is a (sometimes fatal) staph infection. It ended up being a strep infection. I was very worried. They had said this could be serious.
"There was a three- or four-day stretch before (test results were back)... Once I heard that it was strep, I wasn't worried about my life anymore. But I was worried that summer about playing basketball again... Then I had stomach problems with all the antibiotics killing my stomach.''
Harpring missed the first seven games last season before coming back and playing in 63 of Utah's games. Harpring, who has a career mark of 11.5 points per game, averaged just 4.4 points. That was the lowest of his 11-season career with the exception of 1999-2000, when he played in just four games for Orlando while missing nearly the entire season due to injury.
"I was pretty happy just with being able to come back,'' said Harpring, who, despite all his injuries, has played in an average of 73.6 games the past five seasons. "I just worked hard. But it was a tough year.''
But Harpring seems willing to endure pain when training camp starts in two weeks if doctors clear him to play. He's scheduled to make $6.5 million in the final year of his contract."We've got a good team,'' Harpring said. "We've got a lot of good talent... But it's one of those things where I've got to take my physical and we'll see (about playing a 12th season).''
Chris Tomasson can be reached at tomasson@fanhouse.com.
