"If he could have a do-over, Josh Howard might have waited a month or so before making his season debut. He could've held out until he was completely confident and comfortable in his surgically-repaired left knee, which may have kept this season from being a frustrating series of false starts.

"But I think either way, as far as the tendinitis coming, with that piece being taken out of your patella tendon, it's prone to happen. It's neither here nor there," Howard said on Friday morning.

Howard appeared in 18 games with the Wizards this season, averaging a career-low 8.4 points, and was never able to develop a rhythm during this stop-and-go season -- until nagging tendinitis forced it to come to a premature end. He missed the first 24 games, played seven, missed one, played one, missed 19 more, played eight more, missed three, played two, and will miss the final 17.

"I knew it would come with the territory," he said. "The injury I had was a freak accident. I did a lot of research as far as the recovery time and things like that, I kind of expected what happened. I was fortunate to come back as early as I did, just to know that the tendinitis would be what hindered me. That's the part that [stinks].""