By Frank Fitzpatrick <br>INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
<br><br>While Allen Iverson told Sixers general manager Billy
King he would be ready to go next week following elbow
surgery yesterday, the team's physician said the NBA's
most valuable player likely would miss most of
training camp.<br><br>Iverson's projected downtime of four
to six weeks was slightly better than the prognosis
for Aaron McKie, who also was operated on by noted
sports surgeon Joseph Andrews in Birmingham,
Ala.<br><br>McKie, 28, is expected to be out six to eight weeks
after a slight tear in his shoulder was
repaired.<br><br>The 76ers' camp gets under way in State College, Pa.,
next week. The exhibition season opens Oct. 9, the
regular season Oct. 30.<br><br>Sixers physician Dr. Jack
McPhilemy, who assisted Andrews, said a "reasonably decent
amount of bony spurs" were scraped down in Iverson's
right elbow. Those spurs, he noted, irritated the 76ers
star much of last season and limited his range of
movement.<br><br>McKie's tear was in his right glenoid labrum where,
according to Andrews, it created pain each time he raised
his right arm to shoot.<br><br>The two combined to
average more than 73 minutes a game and better than 42
points during the regular season for the 76ers, who won
the Eastern Conference for the first time in 18
years. The nagging injuries limited both through much of
the season, however.<br><br>Andrews called the
results "the best things we could find" for both players,
since there were initial fears the injuries to each
were more serious.<br><br>"We were worried Aaron had a
complete rotator-cuff tear," said Andrews, who performed
the procedures at his Alabama Sports Medicine
facility. "And in Allen's case, we thought he might have a
rather severe arthritic component to his elbow. And as
you know, there is no true cure for arthritis."