Veteran wing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will miss the remainder of the 2025/26 season after undergoing surgery on Thursday to address a misalignment of his right pinky finger, the Grizzlies announced (via Twitter).
The news doesn’t come as a surprise, as Memphis revealed on Wednesday that Caldwell-Pope would have the procedure. The shooting guard is expected to make a full recovery before next season begins, per the team.
Caldwell-Pope, who was acquired from Orlando last summer in the Desmond Bane trade, made 51 appearances in ’25/26 for the Grizzlies, averaging 8.4 points, 2.7 assists and 2.5 rebounds in 21.3 minutes per game. His shooting line was .410/.316/.913.
The 33-year-old was a quality three-and-D contributor for several years, winning a pair of championships (with the Lakers in 2020 and the Nuggets in 2023) as a key role player. However, his production has fallen off the past seasons, particularly from behind the arc — he shot 38.9% from three-point range in the seven seasons leading up to 2024/25, but has converted just 33.3% of his outside looks since.
Caldwell-Pope has been remarkably durable throughout his career, never missing more than eight games in a season until now. He holds a $21.6MM player option for ’26/27 that he’s essentially a lock to exercise.
The Grizzlies, who have been hit hard by injuries all season long, will likely only have nine players active for Friday’s game at Utah (Twitter link).
Caldwell-Pope, Ja Morant (left elbow UCL sprain), Santi Aldama (right knee injury management), Brandon Clarke (right calf strain), Zach Edey (left ankle stress reaction), Cedric Coward (hyperextended right knee), Ty Jerome (right calf injury management) and Scotty Pippen Jr. (left great toe injury management) are all out, while rookie guard Walter Clayton is doubtful to suit up due to a right calf contusion.
As Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal writes (subscriber link), head coach Tuomas Iisaslo provided injury updates on Coward and Aldama on Wednesday. Neither player was able to practice yesterday, and while Coward is said to be making progress, the prognosis for Aldama — who missed eight of the team’s last nine games leading up to the All-Star break — is murky.
“We want to get it to a baseline,” Iisalo said of Aldama’s right knee issue. “We spent those few games trying to go a little bit back and forth and it flared up every time.”
seems like memphis is always hit hard by injuries
They are blessed by injuries – they are tanking like hell and would love to have everyone except the janitor on injury report
This isn’t just a thing for them this year though. They have been hit hard by the injury bug for a few seasons even when they were trying to compete.
By just about any measure, Memphis has had poor success keeping its players healthy and available for the past four seasons, at least. If and when they move off Morant’s contract, the Grizzlies would be an interesting experiment to build a roster for endurance rather than the studs-and-scrubs approach most teams use under the current cap/apron guidelines.
Rather than slag the players reflexively, the NBA needs to think about why the current rules of engagement cause so much actual unavailability — let’s for now put aside the injury pantomime used by the super-tankers, which also needs addressing. Is the regular season too long? That is, for the teams built to compete in the playoffs, can they advance their rosters to post-season relatively intact? Sixteen berths will be filled in the spring, one way or the other. Fans and advertisers like to dream on championship runs, however, and that typically requires healthy stars and hardy starting units.
This isn’t really an injury so much as corrective surgery for a long-term issue. Finger “misalignment” isn’t a broken finger.
The timing of doing it DURING the season rather than the offseason is what should be taken away here.
This is very clearly the team asking “anybody want surgery for something?”
KCP’s shooting has been affected the past couple years but this was clearly something he was otherwise able to play through.