UCLA Basketball: Freshman Center Tony Parker Hurt His Hamstring

The incoming 2012 UCLA basketball recruiting class has taken a hit, with center Tony Parker going down to injury.

According to Rant Sports — and confirmed by the L.A. Times — Parker injured his hamstring. How bad is it? Enough to shelf him for the next two to four weeks:

"Now, it seems as though another piece of bad news has struck Bruin nation as Tony Parker injured his hamstring in practice earlier today and is expected to be out for 2-4 weeks. The injury puts in question Parker’s availability  for UCLA’s trip to China in late August."

Yikes. Two to four weeks is a total blow and might make Parker rusty by the time the season starts in November. The dude is considered to be the biggest threat to Josh Smith’s starting job — besides, y’know, Josh Smith — but he may or may not have seen much floor time anyway since UCLA is kind of stacked at the frontcourt, mainly in terms of bigs (as it is, Parker will compete with Smith, David and Travis Wear, and Anthony Stover for minutes). If the dude sees part of his season cut because the injury is a nagging and consistent one, UCLA might be best off redshirting him, conventionality of the move be damned.

We’re hoping it’s not a nagging injury, though, because if Parker wins a backup spot to Smith — or if he starts and Smith ends up backing Parker up — then whatever UCLA center that’s on the floor will be a pain in the ass to stop down low, since both are big, strong dudes that can play bully inside the paint.

We’ll see, though. The injury won’t be the biggest blow for this stacked UCLA squad, but it’ll definitely be a setback.

Or, if it’s not that bad, it won’t be. Time will tell.

GO BRUINS!!!