Injuries..

 

Injuries? This is early into the season? Unfortunately that is the nature of what the NBA is today. From stars to role players, the NBA season already has several NBA players out due to some form of injury. For starters, both Paul George and Joel Embiid will be out for some time. How will their GMs work around having their players missing the first few games of the season? You always want to get out to a hot start. Joel Embiid specifically stated that he probably won’t play back to back anymore, something to look towards in how his GM manages him throughout the season. Another impactful player that will be out to start the year,

 

Kristaps Porzingis and Khris Middleton, two guys known to have injury woes and miss games, their time table is much longer than the original guys named, does their GM have someone in place to stay afloat while they're out? Herb Jones, Dejounte Murray and Paolo Banchero are all names that go down early, with time tables roughly around 4-6 weeks, crucial for their teams to stay competitive and at least hover around .500 until these guys are back to get their teams back to winning ways.

 

 

Stars

 

We can take a deep dive into a deeper look at what different stars' absences will do to their respective teams. Starting with Joel Embiid.

 

Joel Embiid will be in at LEAST the first 10 games of the season for the Utah Jazz, on top of probably not playing in any back to back games. The Jazz are deep but with Embiid and Dejountae Murray out, it’ll be tough to keep up with a rather tough western conference. They’ll have Franz Wagner miss a few games as well so I expect a rough start for the Utah jazz coming out of the gate, they do have different backup bigs like Jaylin Williams, Jalen Smith and if they want to go small they can even go Jabari Smith Jr. to keep their heads above water but a rather rough start to the season with injuries for the Utah Jazz.

 

Paolo Banchero is THE guy on his team, with a rather young squad, they’ll need all hands on deck to get off to a good start to the season. Unfortunately for the Clippers, they’ll be without Paolo Banchero for at least 4 to 6 weeks with a tear in his Oblique, leaving them to fend off the rough Western Conference with Jalen Williams and Co. I don’t see this team lasting too long in the playoff race without Paolo being involved so they might be sellers early on but you never know, maybe a jump from Jalen Williams could really propel them forward with the ever streaky Jordan Clarkson.

 

Kawhi Leonard in typical Kawhi fashion is out….again. Now with inflammation in his knee, there is no timetable to return as they weigh for his swelling to go down and just maintain the pain for him to get back out there and begin basketball activities. When that will be enough for a player like Kawhi, he may turn into one of those players you will have to cap dump at some point if he can’t get his knee going again. Curious to see what the Raptors do with him and if they look to move him to get immediate help with a team that has a superstar already and could compete right away. The raptors though can hang around for some time with one of the greatest scorers of all time in Kevin Durant and a young star in Chet Holmgren. Raptors should be able to stay above .500 and if they can get Kawhi back at the end of the season they are a team to look out for in making a late run in the Eastern Conference.

 

 

Role Players / Impact Players

 

Not everyone out is a star/superstar but there are some guys that will be missed greatly on roster this upcoming season to start. As stated earlier Dejountae Murray is out about 4 to 6 weeks with a broken hand, Lonzo Ball is out with a hurt hand as well as his injuries unfortunately start to pile up again, Prozingis is a borderline star but we will keep him here for articles sake and he will be out for some time with his foot injury that has him out until at least December. Mark Williams, who is a high end center will be out until at least mid november with a foot injury as well as he works back from his back injury as well and being out all majority of last year. With many more role players out, this season is going to be starting rocky and it will be interesting to see how GM’s work their rosters and prepare their season around different players being out. BEST OF LUCK.