7:37 pm: Vucevic will undergo surgery on Saturday and is expected to miss about a month, reports Shams Charania of ESPN (via Twitter).
7:19 pm: Veteran center Nikola Vucevic fractured the ring finger on his right (shooting) hand and will miss the remainder of Friday’s game vs. Dallas, the Celtics announced (via Twitter).
According to Brian Robb of MassLive, Vucevic sustained the injury in the first quarter of Friday’s contest. The 35-year-old played under two minutes prior to exiting the court with the team’s trainers. X-rays revealed the broken finger.
Vucevic, who is playing on an expiring $21.5MM contract, will be an unrestricted this summer if he doesn’t sign a veteran extension with Boston before July 1, the start of the new league year.
The 16th overall pick in the 2011 draft, Vucevic spent his rookie season with Philadelphia, then was traded to Orlando in the 2012 offseason as part of the four-team deal that sent Dwight Howard to the Lakers. Vucevic played eight-and-a-half years for the Magic prior to being traded to Chicago ahead of the 2021 deadline.
Vucevic spent six years with the Bulls, who traded him to the Celtics last month. Entering Friday, he had made 11 appearances with Boston, averaging 11.4 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.0 assists on .445/.351/.824 shooting in 23.5 minutes per game.
Luka Garza is likely to receive most of the minutes at the backup five with Vucevic out, Robb notes.
Glad GSW didnt get this injury-prone soft as butter big man
Yeah, if they had they would be stuck with two of them!
I’d take him in a fight against you.
Really? I would take me in a fight vs any commenter reply guy on hoopsrumors.com, so there’s that! You guys don’t even have jobs LMAO
Hahaha Hahaha….funny and relax big guy.
Fries in the bag tball! I mean Davey!
“Nikola Vučević has played in 1,031 regular-season games over 15 seasons, averaging approximately 68 to 69 games per season. He is known for his durability, frequently appearing in 70+ games, including five straight seasons with at least 70 appearances.
Based on his 1,031 games played, he generally plays in over 85-90% of his team’s scheduled games”
jokes exist, you know….smh humorless AND jobless, thats the avg commenter on here, huh? no wonder yall hate me lol
Oh everyone’s laughing bro …
so tell Steve Adams to pay me then. If I am the sole reason you come here. Go on!!
If you’re the only one with a job then why do you need to get paid by HoopsRumors??? Sounds like corporate greed to me!!
You’ll take covid KP and be happy you dingus! Hush!!!
Hopefully he’ll be healthy for the playoffs. Queta is the starter either way
I hereby declare this day, national Jayson Tatam day. Let’s go celtics…
I agree on the condition that “The Anomaly” is permanently retired and acknowledged as a terrible nickname