Mihm interview

"I've been very happy with my foot. I haven't felt it one single bit this whole training camp. That's been a big relief for me. I really tried to get this foot to work. I was training it and pushing it from every possible angle that I could work with. We really pushed it hard. I worked out really hard this summer, and it's paid off here. I've got some pop and spring back in my game. I'm playing above the rim again, which is fun.

"The last two years have been very frustrating for me, to say the least. Besides three surgeries, every time I've come back I've been a shadow of what I used to be. It's been frustrating. Being an athletic player, someone who is used to moving and playing above the rim, I felt I was just running around setting picks. I couldn't get my hands on balls. That made everything that much harder to take.

"I relish whatever my role is going to be here. Obviously, I want to be as big a part of this team as I can be. I'm nine years in the league now and my ego is in check. I can handle whatever role I can get. I'm just going to come in and play hard and play the way I remember the way myself playing.

"It's not foreign. It's fun. As stiff and sore as my muscles feel right now from these two-a-days I've been running around with a smile on my face. It hasn't happened in two years. It's been waking up with pain in my foot. Playing through pain in practice and also in games. It's hard to find fun in the game when you're constantly struggling to push through an injury like that, and not knowing if it's ever going to get better. I'm not even thinking about that anymore. I'm not even having to really ice it. It's fun again. It really is.

"I got that screw out in February. I really think that was the final hurdle to getting this better. My goal was to get back to the playoffs, and that was tough. I was out six to eight weeks with the screw removal and then to come back to L.A. with a week left in the season and the team was clicking. My focus was getting my work in, but I knew that maybe I could get back to being on the court. Phil gave me a chance for a couple of minutes, which meant the world to me just to get a chance to play.

"I still wasn't moving. I still wasn't playing the way I wanted to. I knew I needed the summer to get going. I took two weeks, then I just started crushing my legs, really working on sitting in a defensive position for a long period of time, which I really couldn't do for seconds at a time. That was the main focus, working hard. I went back to Austin. I just needed a little change of pace. ... I needed to get out and clear my head a little bit. I went back to my roots there at (the University of Texas) with (Longhorns athletic trainer) Todd Wright, He's as good as they come. Get all that negativity off me."