I walked into the locker room and Ray was sitting there in jeans and a button-down shirt when he usually is in his uniform. He is not playing tonight because he has a bone spur in his left ankle, right around where your shoe meets your ankle. He said surgery is a very good possibility because this has been bothering him for two months and nothing has changed. I asked him what about massages or exercises. He said, "I've been doing those, you just haven't known about it." He said he has been skipping practice, which we didnt know about either even though I continually ask Bob Hill about players' health. Clearly they wanted to keep this thing hidden. Ray said he has changed medicine twice and that has not worked. So he will go into the doctor on Thursday morning and determine if he can come back or if he needs surgery. He said if has surgery on the left ankle, he will get the right ankle scoped as well just to clean it out. So maybe the Sonics can make a run at Greg Oden or Kevin Durant after all because if Ray is done for the rest of the season then it will be difficult for them to improve their standing much. Oddly, this is a different ankle than the one that was surgically repaired in 2003, when the Sonics were playing -- ironically -- the Clippers in Tokyo. Basically, Ray said, he twisted his ankles three times when he was younger (once at Uconn, twice in Milwaukee) and he thinks he came back too soon to allow them to heal properly. He was telling a story about the All-Star game, and Allen Iverson was thinking about coming back right after, and Ray advised him not to come back too soon. Damien will start in Ray's place tonight, and probably for the forseeable future.