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Bucks' Jabari Parker (right foot sprain) to return, start against Cavaliers

Dan Devine
·Senior NBA writer
Jabari Parker will rejoin the Bucks after missing one game with a foot sprain.
Jabari Parker will rejoin the Bucks after missing one game with a foot sprain.

When the Milwaukee Bucks take the court at Quicken Loans Arena on Thursday to match up with the Cleveland Cavaliers in their first regular-season appearance on TNT in nearly 13 years, they'll have Jabari Parker both in uniform and in the starting lineup, marking his return from the right mid-foot sprain that briefly threatened to sideline him for Milwaukee's entire three-game road trip.

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The 20-year-old Parker, whom the Bucks took with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft, missed the first four games of the season while working his way back from the torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee that he suffered last December. He returned against the Philadelphia 76ers on Nov. 4, playing just 16 minutes as he and the Bucks stuck to the slow-and-steady reintegration plan set forth by Robert Altchek, the surgeon who operated on Parker's knee, and Bucks strength and conditioning coach Suki Hobson.

Parker had begun to show more consistent flashes of the form that made him such an enticing prospect at Duke and in the early stages of his rookie season, combining size, quickness, fluidity and strength for some impressive finishes:

After scoring 12 points in a season-high 30 minutes in Milwaukee's double-overtime home victory over the Cavs on Saturday, however, Parker felt discomfort in his right foot, the same foot he fractured as a high-school senior back in 2012. That prompted an MRI, which revealed the sprain and led the Bucks to decide to keep Parker home for a three-game road trip that began with a blowout loss to the Washington Wizards on Tuesday.

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The precautionary matter evidently turned out to be unwarranted. Gery Woelfel of the Racine, Wis., Journal Times reported Wednesday that Parker had headed off to Cleveland, and the Bucks themselves announced Parker's planned participation Thursday:

Parker won't be the only Buck back in business come Thursday night. Veteran reserve guard O.J. Mayo will make his 2015-16 debut after missing the first 11 games of the season with a strained right hamstring suffered in Milwaukee's final preseason contest, giving head coach Jason Kidd two more offensive weapons to use against a Cavaliers defense that boasts the NBA's eighth-stingiest defense, allowing just 98.5 points per 100 possessions. From Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

"It's good we're getting healthy," Kidd said. "We'll get Jabari back in the lineup and we'll get Juice (Mayo) on the floor tonight. We'll see how that goes.

"We've got to get him (Mayo) back in the fold. Just being able to make shots, and being able to create his own shot and plays for his teammates. We're happy to have him back. We're happy to have Jabari back. And I think we're happy to play after our last performance, knowing we didn't do our best."

Whether the additions of Parker and Mayo will provide enough of an offensive boost to propel a Milwaukee side that enters Thursday ranking a middling 16th among 30 NBA teams in points scored per possession past the defending conference champions for the second time in a week remains to be seen. If nothing else, though, Parker's return after just one game on the sidelines has to have Bucks backers concerned at the potential implications of another early-season leg injury for their prize forward breathing a sigh of relief.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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