Minnesota’s Shabazz Muhammad will undergo season-ending finger surgery, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. An unidentified source told Wojnarowski that recovery will take about eight weeks.
Muhammad ruptured the middle finger on his shooting hand, tweets Andy Greder of The St. Paul Pioneer Press. His surgery has been scheduled for Monday. It will be performed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., according to a tweet from the Timberwolves.
Muhammad has been an improved player in his second season with Minnesota, averaging 13.5 points and 4.1 rebounds in 38 games. A UCLA product, he was the 14th pick in the 2013 draft. He’s still on his rookie contract and is making a little over $1.9MM this year. He is under the Wolves’ control through the 2016/17 season.
The deadline to apply for a disabled player exception passed last month, so Minnesota can’t receive any extra salary flexibility to replace the second-year swingman. Muhammad was disappointing in his lone year at UCLA and as a rookie with the Wolves last season, but he’d just begun this season to again show some of the promise that had him tied with Nerlens Noel atop the Recruiting Services Consensus Index coming out of high school in 2012.