Wizards' Thomas Has Aortic Valve Surgery

Washington Wizards center Etan Thomas underwent surgery yesterday morning at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., to repair a leak in his aortic valve.

Thomas is expected to miss the season, according to two league sources.

The Wizards said they would not provide any details on the procedure until Thomas gave permission to release medical information.

Several teammates called or sent text messages to Thomas in recent days, and all-star forward Caron Butler said he was hoping to visit Thomas at some point between Sunday's game at Philadelphia and Tuesday's game at Chicago.

"It's important for him to know that our prayers are with him and his family and we want to see him do whatever he has to do to get back to good health," Butler said. "Basketball is obviously secondary right now, but we all hope that he can come back and keep playing if that's what he wants to do."

According to Ammar Bafi, a cardiac surgeon at Washington Hospital Center, a typical patient who has undergone surgery to repair an aortic valve can be cleared for normal activity within six to eight weeks, but resuming the kind of physical activity associated with playing basketball could take up to a year.

Some athletes have recovered from aortic valve procedures and resumed their careers. Former San Francisco 49ers guard Jesse Sapolu was playing football eight months after having his aortic valve replaced in January 1997 and Los Angeles Lakers forward Ronny Turiaf returned to action six months after undergoing surgery to repair an enlarged aortic root in July 2005.

Following the 2005 death of Atlanta Hawks center Jason Collier because of an enlarged heart, the league mandated that all players undergo a series of cardiac tests including a physical exam, blood work and three heart tests: an electrocardiogram, a resting echocardiogram and a stress cardiogram.

It was during that testing process that doctors discovered a cardiac irregularity in Thomas a few days before training camp opened in Richmond on Oct. 2.

Wizards guard Antonio Daniels understands the importance of diligent heart screening. His older brother, Chris Daniels, died of a cardiac event in 1996 while playing basketball at the University of Dayton.

"It's been 11 years since that happened and I think there is a far greater awareness now as far as testing and detecting those kinds of things," Daniels said. "I think more people know that even if a person is in great shape and feels fine, there may be something wrong, and a situation like Etan's reminds everyone of just how important it is to get checked out regularly."

Thomas has three years and $20 million remaining on his contract. Should he be declared out for the season, there is a provision in the collective bargaining agreement that would allow the Wizards to acquire a free agent or to create room to accept a salary in a trade.

The exception can be used only to acquire one player, and the maximum salary for the replacement player is 50 percent of the injured player's salary, or the average NBA salary, whichever is less. A league-designated physician would have to approve before the exception could be used.

However, there aren't many free agent big men available -- veteran P.J. Brown, who played with Chicago last season, still hasn't landed with a new team -- and Wizards Coach Eddie Jordan said he is comfortable with his current group, which includes starter Brendan Haywood and reserves Andray Blatche, Darius Songaila, Oleksiy Pecherov and Tony Massenburg.

All of those players saw action at center during Tuesday's preseason win at Cleveland.

Haywood said he's fully prepared to carry heavy minutes. In fact, one of the sources of Haywood's problems with Jordan the past two seasons was Haywood's feeling that he wasn't getting enough playing time.

After averaging a career-high 27.4 minutes per game during the 2004-05 season, during which he posted career-best averages of 9.4 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.7 blocks, Haywood averaged 23.8 minutes in 2005-06 and 22.6 minutes last season.

Wizards Note: The team released guards Willie Deane and Jamon Gordon, a rookie out of Virginia Tech, leaving 16 players on the roster, including Thomas. Teams are allowed to keep as many as 15 players on the regular season roster.