Nuggets swingman Will Barton will undergo an MRI after suffering a right hamstring injury, ESPN’s Royce Young writes. Barton felt a pop less than a minute into the team’s game against Golden State on Friday. The Nuggets are already depleted in the backcourt and can ill afford to lose another rotation player. Jamal Murray is out for the season after undergoing ACL surgery and Monte Morris is also sidelined with a hamstring issue. Barton, who holds a $14.67MM option on his contract for next season, is averaging 12.9 PPG, 4.1 RPG and 3.3 APG in 55 games this season.
We have more from the Northwest Division:
- Gabriel Deck has arrived in Oklahoma City and is ready to begin his NBA career once he passes protocols, Marc Stein of the New York Times tweets. The EuroLeague standout signed a four-year contract with the Thunder on April 12. Coach Mark Daigneault said he would “try to get him right in the mix as fast as possible.”
- The Trail Blazers have hired former WNBA All-Star Asjha Jones, according to Dwight Jaynes of NBC Sports Northwest. Jones was an assistant coach for the Washington Mystics last season. She’ll be Portland’s director of basketball strategy and planning on Neil Olshey‘s basketball operations staff.
- Chris Finch became the Timberwolves’ head coach a little over two months ago and The Athletic’s Britt Robson takes a deep dive into Finch’s rotations and strategies since he replace Ryan Saunders.
Denver should be just fine tonight since Houston is expected to be without six of their top rotation players (Wood, Wall, Porter, Gordon, Brown, and Augustin).
Also they’re awful and tanking.
Denver FO has been slow to act and fill voids.
They’d be fine if all those guys were playing
This should be the fourth time this season the Rockets are playing with the minimum of 8 players. They also played with just 9 players in five games, 10 players in eleven games, and 11 players in fifteen games this season. Tate is their new iron man replacing Tucker.
Actually the Rockets are using just 7 players in Denver and only three of them are regulars (Tate, Olynyk, and KJ Martin).
Everybody is short players. Have you not gotten the impression that players are bailing on the Rockets. It’s beyond mere ineptitude— it’s embarassing. Now they are telling players not to cooperate in the Booby Trap investigation.
More incidents will come based on the GM’s rapid rebuild plan of collecting talent other teams passed on for questionable character.
We shall see who returns to contender status first, the Rockets or the Cavs. Houston is an excellent position to get one of the franchise players at the top of the draft if things go well for them in the lottery.
If/when they get one of them to add to a strong core of Wood, Wall, Porter, Tate, Gordon, and KJ Martin while hopefully retaining Olynyk as well this team will be competing again before you know it.
As for Cleveland? Who knows how long their fans will be forced to watch their team continue to lose before they find another LeBron.
Way to go Blazers!! Former Husky great Ashja Jones!
Barton stan here. After Murray went down, Barton’s player option was one of the wildcard hopes for the Nuggets. If Barton plays great in the playoffs, he can opt out and sign a better/longer deal. Hope he heals up. Denver needs more guards.
He’s 100 percent opting in. He’s been inconsistent and he’s injury prone. At his best, Will is excellent but he’s been very up and down this season and now, hurt again.
Considering Neil Olshey’s own job security, I don’t know how good a gig it would be to join his ops staff at the moment.