76ers' Kelly Oubre ready to return after being hit by car, slams 'conspiracy theorists'
Kelly Oubre was hospitalized last month after he was hit by a car while walking near his Philadelphia home
About a month after he was hit by a car while walking near his Philadelphia home, Kelly Oubre is set to return to the lineup for the 76ers this week.
And yes, Oubre said Monday, he was hit by a car.
“This was and is a very traumatic situation for me and my family,” Oubre said, via The Associated Press. “So I just wish that my life wasn’t like, ‘The Truman Show’ where everybody kind of watched it and have their own opinion about my life.”
Oubre was hospitalized last month after he said he was struck by a car while he was walking near his apartment in Philadelphia. Police said Oubre was hit by a silver car that was moving at “a high rate of speed” and that he was hit “in the upper chest area with the driver-side mirror.”
Oubre was briefly hospitalized after the incident, and was diagnosed with a broken rib and injuries to his hip and leg.
The vehicle fled the scene after the incident, and an investigation is ongoing. Questions arose a few weeks later when Philadelphia police said they had not yet found video evidence of the incident. TMZ, however, then released video from a doorbell camera from Oubre’s home that showed him returning after the alleged crash.
Oubre said he’s spoken to police and done his part. Now he’s just “ready to hoop.”
“This is very hard for us to have to deal with and for me to miss being on the court which keeps me sane, and a lot of people were very inconsiderate and insensitive to try to worry about video cameras,” Oubre said. “So yeah, I mean, I’m just really blessed that it wasn’t worse than what it is and I’m able to come back to work and smile and walk and talk and breathe. So yeah, that’s just what I have to say about the conspiracy theorists.”
Oubre has averaged 16.3 points and 5.1 rebounds in eight games with the 76ers this season, his first with the team after spending the last two with the Charlotte Hornets. The 27-year-old is on a one-year, $2.8 million deal with the 76ers.
Oubre is expected to return to the lineup Wednesday night when the 76ers take on the Washington Wizards. The 76ers are 12-7 headed into that contest and have lost their last two games, most recently a 125-119 loss to the Boston Celtics on Friday night.
“Well, I’ll probably fire him right back in there,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said of Oubre, via The Philadelphia Inquirer. “Let me see what it looks like getting to Wednesday. I think that it could matter if there’s other guys in or out, right? But I would imagine, like, if everybody’s healthy, he’s coming off the bench, and he’s coming [into the game] probably pretty early.”
