Khris Middleton out for six months because of hamstring injury

When the Milwaukee Bucks begin training camp on Tuesday in Madison, Wis., they will do so without starting guard Khris Middleton.

On Wednesday night, the team announced Middleton tore his left hamstring and will undergo surgery in the next week. He is expected to miss approximately six months.

Middleton, a 6-foot-8 guard who is entering his fifth season in the NBA and fourth with the Bucks, has been one of Milwaukee’s most dependable players over the past three seasons, playing in 240 of 246 of the team’s regular-season games since arriving via trade from the Detroit Pistons.

He started all 79 games he appeared in last season, averaging a team-high 18.2 points per game while leading the Bucks with 143 3-pointers.

According to Shams Charania of The Vertical, who first reported the news, Middleton sustained the injury during workouts on Tuesday.

“We’re obviously disappointed for Khris and our team, but injuries are an unfortunate part of the game,” Bucks General Manager John Hammond said in a statement. “We’ll rely on our overall roster depth to help us while Khris is out for a significant period of the season.”

The 2016-17 season marks Middleton’s second under the five-year, $70-million contract he signed with the Bucks last summer.

Bosh had to deal with more than one clot

Chris Bosh was dealing with more than one blood clot earlier this year, and said Wednesday that he felt written off when Miami Heat team doctors advised him that the situation would likely be career-ending.

It’s the first time Bosh has said there was more than the one known clot that was found in his calf in February and ended his season. Bosh made his revelations in the first chapter of a documentary that he’s releasing through former Heat teammate LeBron James’ “Uninterrupted” digital platform.

Bosh said he was diagnosed with the clot in his calf on Feb. 11 after arriving in Toronto. “Clots were found, again,” Bosh said. “My initial thoughts from it were, first of all, you have to be kidding. Secondly, this isn’t real.”

Bosh said that he then returned to Miami after the All-Star break and met with doctors. His 2014-15 season was also cut short at the All-Star break because of a clot that was found in one of his lungs.

“They told me that my season’s over. My career is probably over. This just happened, this is just how it is,” Bosh said, referring what followed after this year’s finding of clots. “I felt right away that I was written off. If a doctor tells me, ‘Hey, that’s it and this is how it is’ and I don’t buy that, I think that I have the right to disagree with you. I know inside me I have a lot of talent and a lot of ability. And I have it. I know it have it.”

Etc.

Christian Laettner could avoid bankruptcy after reaching a deal with his creditors. Court records say the NBA player and Duke All-American and his creditors have reached a settlement, and Laettner’s attorneys have filed a motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to dismiss the involuntary bankruptcy proceedings against him.

The documents were filed Monday and obtained Wednesday by the Associated Press. The amount of the settlement was not disclosed in those fillings, and a hearing is scheduled Oct. 20 in Durham. …

Steve Kerr fully expects NBA players to take up their own version of 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s stand against racial oppression. Whether his own Golden State players show some kind of support or opt to protest during the national anthem once the season begins, he isn’t sure. That will be a topic of discussion as a team this training camp for the Warriors, and the reigning NBA coach of the year already has had discussions with a few of his players individually about the issue and shared his personal thoughts.

“No matter what side of the spectrum you’re on, I would hope every American is disgusted with what is going on around the country, what just happened in Tulsa with Terence Crutcher,” said Kerr, who also has been outspoken on the issue of gun control given that his father, Malcolm, was murdered while he was the American University president in Beirut. “It doesn’t matter what side you’re on the Kaepernick stuff, you’d better be disgusted about the things that are happening.”