Magic center Nikola Vucevic fractured the first metacarpal on his left hand in tonight’s game, tweets Josh Robbins of The Orlando Sentinel. The injury occurred midway through the first quarter of the contest at Washington, and Vucevic was taken to the locker room for X-rays that revealed the fracture.
Vucevic is expected to have surgery on the hand and miss six to eight weeks, according to Shams Charania of The Vertical (Twitter link).
Vucevic has started all 33 of Orlando’s games heading into tonight and was averaging 17.8 points and 9.6 rebounds. He joins Aaron Gordon, Terrence Ross and Evan Fournier as members of the Magic’s opening-night lineup who are out with injuries, Robbins notes (Twitter link).
Vucevic’s absence should result in more playing time for backup center Bismack Biyombo, who is seeing just 15 minutes per game this season, down from from 22 a year ago. Averaging 4.0 points and 4.4 rebounds, Biyombo still has two years and $34MM left on the contract his signed in the summer of 2016.
Just when it couldn’t get any worse for Orlando…
After a promising start to the season, the injuries are exposing a lack of depth. A recent history of overpaying players in exaggerated hopes they would improve upon a contract season are really limiting their options.