Kawhi Leonard can't hurt hand further but Spurs unsure when he can return

Like most people, Kawhi Leonard has Christmas Day off. He's probably not as happy about that as you may be.

Leonard is missing his fifth consecutive game as the San Antonio Spurs take on the Oklahoma City Thunder, as he remains sidelined with a torn ligament in his right hand. The injury is somewhat nondescript, a rare malady that nobody seems to be able to describe well or put a timeline on.

In any case, Leonard is struggling to palm a ball despite owning gargantuan hands, and he's struggling with other simple basketball tasks. Head coach Gregg Popovich tried his best to provide detail on Thursday, but really all there is to glean is that Leonard at least can't make the injury worse:

It's a pain thing. He can't move his hand. He can't catch and dribble and all that stuff with his hand. Hopefully something will happen. But medically they don't think he can hurt it any more than it's hurt now. So that's good. It's just a matter of when he can get use of the hand I guess because it's too stiff and doesn't work like your hand works.

As for a return, Popovich remained at a loss, saying Leonard could play Friday, could be out two more weeks or could be out even longer.

At 18-11 entering play Thursday, the Spurs don't need to rush Leonard yet, but his absence is notable. The team is 12.9 points per-100 possessions better with him on the floor than without and they can, at times, struggle to guard top wings when he's on the bench.

In a small silver lining, Kyle Anderson is getting a chance to get his feet wet. After playing sparsely through the team's first 21 games, he's appeared in eight consecutive outings now, starting six of them and averaging 19.2 minutes. He's averaged 6.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.3 assists while shooting 52.5 percent in that small sample, an encouraging improvement from this season's early returns.