INJURED LOWRY OUT FOR REGULAR SEASON.
ALL- STAR GUARD TO MISS REMAINDER OF REGULAR SEASON BECAUSE OF INJURY
Masai Ujiri defended t he Toronto Raptors’ handling of Kyle Lowry’s wrist injury, despite the fact the point guard is scheduled to undergo surgery barely a week after playing in the NBA all-star game.
“I don’t think there’s any bad optics here,” Ujiri, the team president, said. “If you look at the history of this kind of injury, players sometimes feel pain and sometimes they don’t feel pain. Sometimes you feel that this thing is going to go away, and that’s how he felt. There were a couple of games when Kyle felt it in his wrist I’m sure, a couple times where he slept wrong and he felt it, and there was swelling.
“( On Sunday) Kyle felt OK actually, the swelling had gone down, we were very optimistic,” Ujiri added. “And then this morning it swelled up again.”
Lowry will have surgery on Tuesday to remove loose bodies from his right wrist. He’s expected to miss the rest of the regular season, with an aim to return in time for the playoffs.
The Raptors were in New York to play the Knicks on Monday and Lowry visited a surgeon there who operated on his broken left wrist in his rookie season, and a joint decision was made to perform the surgery now rather than dealing with the nagging injury the rest of the season.
“Everybody drew the conclusion that it will be good to clean this out now rather than it be something that continues to reoccur,” Ujiri said Monday. “With this kind of problem, when it lodges in the joint, there can be some discomfort one day and the next day you can feel good and then the next day you feel discomfort again, or there’s swelling.’’
Lowry injured the wrist against the Charlotte Hornets on Feb. 15, but played in the NBA all- star game four days later in New Orleans and participated in the three- point shooting contest. He said he hadn’t thought the injury was serious. He received treatment from the Pelicans’ staff in New Orleans, and had the wrist bandaged with ice when he wasn’t on the floor.
Raptors fans took to social media Monday to voice their disappointment about his all-star appearance.
“If anybody wants to make a big deal of the all- star game or threepoint contest, humbly I say I don’t think this can be questioned,” Ujiri said. “I don’t think Kyle is going to do anything that is going to hurt him in any way. I don’t think Kyle will look at that and say, ‘ Hey, I’ ll put myself in this position, and jeopardized something by playing in the all-star game.”’
Monday’s news came as a surprise a day after head coach Dwane Casey had said t ests showed no significant damage to the wrist.
With 23 games left in the regular season, it’s also a big blow to a team looking to climb back up the Eastern Conference standings. Lowry is second on the team with his average of 22.8 points and leads the Raptors with 6.9 assists per game. Toronto has averaged 113.2 points with Lowry on the floor this season compared to 105.1 without him. Defensively, they’ve allowed 105.1 points with Lowry versus 108.6 without him.
Cory Joseph and Delon Wright fared well in Lowry’s absence in Sunday’s 102- 96 win over the Portland Trail Blazers. Joseph had 14 points and six assists, while Wright added 11 points.
Ujiri said there are no plans to sign another point guard.
“We have to give the point guards we have the experience to grow, to build with this team, and to be ready for what’s coming,” Ujiri said. “We’re going to discuss some more, but off the top of my head now I would say no, I think Cory and Delon and Fred ( VanVleet) have been very capable. We believe in them, and I think we’ll go from there.”
Three- t i me all- star DeMar DeRozan also stepped up in Lowry’s absence. In the past two games, he’s scored 76 points combined, shot 54.5 per cent from the field and made 27 of 28 from the free-throw line.
The Raptors have also looked better after acquiring Serge Ibaka and P. J. Tucker in trades. If Lowry doesn’t return in the regular season, however, Ibaka and Tucker will head into the playoffs having never played or even practised with Lowry.
“The big picture was to have them have a chance to play with Kyle and with our whole team,” Ujiri said, “but that has been postponed now — but hey, we’re patient and we’ll continue to wait and Kyle will get better, and you come back strong.”