CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Jerry Stackhouse's homecoming was cut short Wednesday night when he aggravated an injury to his right hamstring early against Charlotte.

Stackhouse had been bothered by the same injury on the last road trip, hurting it against the Los Angeles Clippers and missing a game at Sacramento. The team had four days off, and he hoped that time would help him recover.

He played the next two games but left Wednesday after less than seven minutes.

"It's just a little strain, but it's one of those things," said Stackhouse, who is a North Carolina native and needed 65 tickets for family and friends to Wednesday's game. "It probably wasn't all the way healed. You hit it every time when you do anything in basketball.

"It was a little bit worse than what I did to it in LA. So we'll take a few more days and then we'll see.

"I didn't get an MRI on it the last time, and I may do that to make sure there's nothing else going on in there."

Stackhouse said he was not optimistic about playing Friday against the LA Lakers.

Coach Avery Johnson said that even if Stackhouse were to miss a game or two, the injury does not appear to be serious.

Meanwhile, the MRI on Brandon Bass' right Achilles' showed no structural damage, though Johnson said there was an issue "that we have to manage more than we've been managing here recently."

Bass missed Wednesday's game and is listed as day-to-day.

■ Hooking up: Charlotte coach Sam Vincent is the first alumni member of Johnson's staff of assistants to get a head coaching job, and Vincent is going through the predictable tough times of an expansion franchise in its fourth season.

The pair spent some time together Tuesday night, and Vincent credited the year he spent on Johnson's staff last season for the opportunity he's getting with the Bobcats as a young coach on the rise.

Vincent spent one year as a head coach in the Development League, then worked for Johnson before being tabbed by the Bobcats.

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Dallas Mavericks' Dirk Nowitzki (41) and Jerry Stackhouse defend against Charlotte's Emeka Okafor.

"I made him understand that, no matter how much I thought I was ready for it after the D-League, the year I had a chance to spend with him was very important to helping me develop and be ready for this year," Vincent said. "We kind of joked about a second year, and how much more that would have prepared me. But the opportunity was here and I'm just trying to make the best of it."

■ 3-pointless? Dirk Nowitzki, who won the 3-point shooting contest during All-Star Weekend two years ago before getting unseated by Jason Kapono last season, has not yet heard from the NBA about participating in this year's event during the festivities in New Orleans, Feb. 15-17.

Furthermore, he doesn't expect to hear from the league.

"I'm shooting 30 percent – and I'm not the defending champ," Nowitzki said.

Jason Terry added that he has yet to hear word about whether he will be part of the shootout.

■ Briefly: Josh Howard, who grew up about 90 miles up the road in Winston-Salem, had to come up with 82 tickets for Wednesday's game. ... Howard will have a basketball clinic Saturday at the 24 Hour Fitness at 5100 Belt Line. The camp, sponsored by the Josh Howard Foundation, is for boys and girls ages 7 to 18 and costs $60, which includes lunch.