The early signs didn’t appear positive after Brandon Rush suffered a gruesome injury last night, as Marcus Thompson II of the Bay Area News Group writes, and agent Mark Bartelstein confirmed the bad news, passing along word that Rush tore his ACL, tweets Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chroncle. Missing a significant amount of time figures to disrupt Rush’s plan to decline the $4MM option on the last year of his contract next summer. Rush was set on continuing his impressive play from last season and parlaying it into a longer, more lucrative contract in 2013, Thompson reveals. There’s more on what the next step could be for the Golden State, as well as other notes out of the Pacific this afternoon.
- The torn left ACL will keep Rush out for the season, according to Simmons, who suggests Josh Howard, Mickael Pietrus and Maurice Evans as possible replacements.
Earlier updates:
- The Warriors could request a $2MM disabled player exception if Rush is ruled out for the rest of the season, but fellow Bay Area News Group scribe Tim Kawakami points out the Warriors may pass on that option, since they’re already above the luxury tax threshold (Twitter link).
- It might be premature to suggest Mike Brown is on his way out of the Lakers coaching job, but Zach Harper of CBSSports.com notices that Brown is already showing signs of desperation.
- Former Lakers guard Andrew Goudelock was taken second in last night’s D-League draft, after JaJuan Johnson, but Ridiculous Upside’s Gino Pilato, in handing out draft grades for every D-League team, calls him “the best recent former NBA talent” in the draft.
- Suns rookie point guard Kendall Marshall doesn’t figure to see much playing time, and with practice time much less plentiful in the regular season than it was in training camp, he and assistant coach Lindsey Hunter are fitting in some one-on-one instruction, as Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic documents.
- Harper argues that while Clippers offer plenty of flash, their retooled offseason roster still has too many holes.
feel bad for brown. He’s working with a roster that is older and injured, and has not played much with each other. Give him, and the lakers, some time