Linas Kleiza’s knee injury is not career-ending, but thanks for asking!

A bad rumor about his knees left Toronto Raptors forward Linas Kleiza confused on Friday afternoon. It turns out he’s far better off than the report had suggested.

by Steve von Horn

Feb 22, 2013, 8:16 PM UTC

Tom Szczerbowski-US PRESSWIRE

Toronto Raptors forward Linas Kleiza has only played in 20 games for the Toronto Raptors this season, and he hasn't seen the floor since Dec. 28 due to knee issues, but even he was astounded to hear about a recent rumor that his career is in jeopardy.

Asta Zukaite of 15min.lt orginally reported on Friday that Kleiza’s arthroscopic knee surgery in 2011 possible went wrong, and that the 28-year-old forward was due to miss the rest of the season. The report also intimated that Kleiza’s basketball career was in doubt. LithuanianBasketball.com picked up the story, and the news continued to spread. Here is a bit of the report from LithuanianBasketball.com:

According to the former head of the Lithuanian national team’s delegation and a good friend of Kleiza, Antanas Guoga, it is likely that the surgery will need to be repeated.
“I’ve heard that the surgery didn’t go right, there were some mistakes [in the rehabilitation process] after the injury. It’s not good that he underwent surgery in the United States. You can’t turn the clock back, but things might have been different, if it had been Lithuanian medics,” Guoga told 15min.lt.

Raptors beat reporters Eric Koren and Holly MacKenzie got the chance to ask Kleiza directly about his injury, and here’s what happened:

Kleiza said he has spent last six weeks building up quad after a busy summer drained him; could be back in a week.
— Eric Koreen (@ekoreen) February 22, 2013

Kleiza: "I don't even want to talk about it and I don’t know how you can write something like that out of the blue."
— Holly MacKenzie (@stackmack) February 22, 2013

Kleiza on Lithuanian reports that his career was in danger: "That’s the good thing about Lithuania: I had no idea either."
— Eric Koreen (@ekoreen) February 22, 2013

Eventually a clarification was issued via LithuanianBasketball.com’s Twitter page that the confusion came from “[e]ditors chasing clicks.” The rift between a possibly career-ending injury and one which Kleiza says he could return from in a week’s time is a mile wide, but the bad rumor did spice up a Friday afternoon in Toronto.