OG Anunoby injury update: Raptors forward out at least another two weeks with fractured finger, per report

OG Anunoby of the Toronto Raptors will be sidelined for at least the next two weeks, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. Anunoby has missed the Raptors' four games since the All-Star break with a broken right ring finger and saw a specialist on Monday.

Anunoby is not expected to need surgery, per ESPN. On Tuesday, Toronto coach Nick Nurse told reporters that it is a "slight fracture" that should heal with rest.

"He's been playing with it for quite some time," Nurse said. "We're not even sure how long. It is getting better. The specialist thought it was nearly healed, said it will get better every day. I guess we're just waiting to determine if he's able to play on it. And they said probably within two weeks it will be fully healed, so we're just, I guess, trying to decide what route we're going to take there."

In Anunoby's absence, the Raptors have been starting center Khem Birch, but they closed Tuesday's 109-108 win against the Brooklyn Nets with Precious Achiuwa in his place. All-Star guard Fred VanVleet missed both sides of Toronto's home-and-home against the Nets this week because of right knee soreness, and big man D.J. Wilson, who is on a 10-day contract, missed the second game because of left knee soreness.

This season, Anunoby is averaging 17.1 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.6 assists, with a career-high 20.8 percent usage rate and a career-low 53.8 percent true shooting percentage. While his 35.1-percent mark from 3-point range doesn't sound particularly impressive, he is one of the Raptors' few floor spacers and is shooting 43 percent in the corners. Toronto misses Anunoby's shooting, and it misses his all-world defense.

In happier Raptor news: Scottie Barnes was named Eastern Conference rookie of the month for February. Barnes averaged 15.2 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.4 steals in 31.8 minutes in February, and ended the month with a 28-point, 16-rebound, four-assist, five-steal performance in Brooklyn, shooting 12 for 14 in perhaps the best game of his young career. March has started well for Barnes, too -- he had 18 points, 10 rebounds and four assists against the Nets on Tuesday, helping to seal the game with a block and a no-look pass in crunch time. He has been an important part of the team all season, and the Raptors will rely on him even more with Anunoby out of the lineup.

Comments

From Deep: At long last, Nikola Jokic's Nuggets can envision getting to the top of the mountain

Jamal Murray tore his ACL on April 12, 2021. Leading up to that night, he'd been playing at an All-NBA level for two months: In a 25-game stretch, Murray averaged 24.1 points on .509/.459/.935 shooting splits, 4.2 rebounds and 5.2 assists. He was even more efficient than he was in the bubble playoffs, and his defense had improved, too. Murray only got to play with Aaron Gordon, the Denver Nuggets' big trade-deadline addition, for five games. They won them all except the one in which Murray got injured. In 110 minutes, their new starting five scored slightly more efficiently than any iteration of the Kevin Durant-era death lineup in Golden State and defended like a top-five team. Two Nikola Jokic MVP awards later, Murray is back. So is Michael Porter Jr., who signed a five-year extension about a year ago and needed back surgery nine games into the 2020-21 season. The Nuggets remember how easily everything slid into place with Gordon in the mix. Newcomer Kentavious Caldwell-Pop...

Klay Thompson to sit out Warriors preseason games in Japan as Kerr says he needs more time to ramp-up

Klay Thompson may have returned healthy to the Golden State Warriors last season, but the scars from his two missed seasons are still quite visible. The Warriors played their first of two preseason games against the Washington Wizards on Friday and will play another on Sunday, but Warriors coach Steve Kerr said that Thompson will not be playing at all during the trip to Japan. "Just feel more comfortable giving him a little more of a ramp up," Kerr said before Friday's victory over Washington. "He's just not quite ready to play at this point just based on where, you know, we're so early in camp. We just want to be safe and make sure he gets a good ramp-up before he plays in games." Typically, so little time to ramp up wouldn't be a problem for a veteran in a preseason context. The games tend to be so low-impact and demand so few minutes out of a team's best players that they can safely jog through them. Stephen Curry and Draymond Green played 1...

LeBron James says he has 'no relationship' with Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

It's not a matter of if LeBron James passes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the No. 1 spot on the NBA's all-time scoring list, it's when. James sits just 1,326 points away from passing the Hall of Famer and Los Angeles Lakers legend, a milestone that should happen at some point this season given James is still performing at peak levels and is coming off a year in which he averaged over 30 points a night. If he averages around the same amount of points as he did a season ago for the Lakers, James could break the record somewhere in the middle of the season, assuming he stays healthy. It's a highly anticipated moment heading into the season, but in regards to LeBron's thoughts about and his relationship with Abdul-Jabbar, he didn't have much to say on the matter. Following the Lakers first preseason game Monday night, a reporter asked James what his thoughts were on the Lakers legend and if the two had any relationship, to which LeBron gave a very short answer. "No...

Crossover World

Search This Blog