MEMPHIS — Jose Calderon was in Starbucks across the street from the FedEx Forum a few hours before game time when he was approached by a Spanish-speaking fan who wanted to pose for a picture with the Toronto Raptors' point guard.
Calderon obliged pleasantly enough.
The Home of the Blues might be an unlikely place for Calderon to have a star turn, but circumstances have conspired to make it so.
T.J. Ford, the Raptors' starting point guard, was not available for last night's game against the Memphis Grizzlies as he waits for the symptoms of a stinger — a nerve irritation across the neck, shoulders and arms — to subside. Ford was hurt in the third quarter of Toronto's loss to Dallas on Tuesday night.
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He didn't attend the Raptors' morning shootaround yesterday after he was examined by doctors in Memphis. He watched last night's game from the team's hotel.
"We talked to him today, he's feeling a little better," Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell said. "We're hoping everything subsides and he plays, hopefully, Saturday and Sunday. But he's not going to come to the arena tonight. He asked me to stay in the hotel so he can relax a little bit."
With Ford out, the starting role fell to Calderon, his more than capable understudy.
"He's our best player so far this season, he's playing great," Calderon said of Ford. "We're going to miss him for sure, but I'm going to play the best that I can."
Calderon has shown he can handle the extra load. He averaged 13.3 points and 8.8 assists a game starting for an injured Ford last season.
Still, the timing couldn't have been better given the significance of last night's game to Spanish basketball.
With the Grizzlies led by Pau Gasol and newly added Spanish star Juan Carlos Navarro, and the Raptors' duo of Calderon and Jorge Garbajosa in town last night, it was supposed to be a big moment for Spanish basketball fans.
Spoiling the party is the uncertain status of Garbajosa, who remains on the Raptors' inactive list after a magnetic resonance imaging test on Saturday showed a change in the Spaniard's surgically repaired left leg.
Garbajosa was already playing against the team's advice after Raptors doctors determined in August that his broken leg hadn't healed completely.
But Garbajosa insisted on playing in the European championship in Spain in September, and after he obtained a $1-million insurance policy, the Raptors gave him the go-ahead.
That policy will expire Nov. 30.
"It's going to be the first time with four [Spaniards], only with Garbo's injury, he cannot play," Calderon said. "But it's a special night for sure. Everyone is going to be watching."
