1:05pm: The Spurs have provided an official update on White, announcing that he suffered a left plantar fascia tear. The press release didn’t provide a specific timeline for his return.
10:23am: The Spurs‘ injury luck has gone from bad to worse this preseason, as a third San Antonio player – and second point guard – is expected to miss an extended period of time. Derrick White has suffered a heel injury and will be sidelined for six to eight weeks, according to head coach Gregg Popovich (Twitter link via Jeff McDonald of The San Antonio Express-News).
It’s a bad break for White, who had been poised to take on a larger role for the Spurs with starting point guard Dejounte Murray expected to miss the entire season with a torn ACL. Initial reports in the wake of Murray’s injury suggested that San Antonio would replace him from within, but with White also on the shelf now, it’s possible those plans could change.
Patty Mills and non-guaranteed camp invitee Nick Johnson are now the only healthy point guards on the roster, though DeMar DeRozan figures to assume some of the ball-handling duties. The Spurs could keep an eye on the waiver wire in the next few days — if any reliable veteran point guards become available, they could be of interest to San Antonio.
White, the Spurs’ first-round pick in 2017, played limited minutes in his rookie season, averaging 3.2 PPG and 1.5 RPG in 17 games (8.2 MPG). With Tony Parker no longer on the roster, San Antonio was set to lean more heavily on White in 2018/19, even before Murray went down. That likely won’t happen until December now.
Meanwhile, this year’s first-round pick – Lonnie Walker – is also expected to be out until at least mid- to late-November after undergoing knee surgery.
Knew picking up mills in my fantasy league was a good call
Man, such bad luck. Wishing a speedy recovery for all of these injured players.
Maybe they can sign Patrick McCaw? He’s still out there.
Gregg Popovich was asking a lot for Kawhi, like Tom Thibodeaux is now for Jimmy Butler. Pop is short on guards now because of injuries. If he needs to make a trade, this is when the other teams general managers get paybacks.
If they need a trade they can just hit up the clips for one of the 14 guards they have.
Good call. I dont know that the clippers would give them Patrick Beverly or Teodosic for cheap though, considering they’ll be in similar seeding in the West
Spurs should go for Delon Wright TOR. Different conference, improving, and a contract coming up when the Raps are way over the tax line.
Pretty sure Bryn Forbes is a PG and is probably the backup behind Mills rn instead of Johnson
Forbes has played some there in the past, but he’s more of a two than a one — per Basketball-Reference, 84% of his minutes last year came at SG (only 3% at PG).