Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault provided an update on the injury to guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on Tuesday.
Daigneault said Gilgeous-Alexander was progressing but did not provide any definitive answer about whether he would play again this season. Here is the full update from Daigneault with seven games left in the season:
“He’s progressing. He’s got a significant tear in his plantar fascia. It’s not something that you should really mess around with. If we got aggressive with him, it could compromise him long-term, which makes no sense for us, for a player that is as important to our franchise as he is.
“… He’s probably going to have the opportunity, he and Lu (Dort) to play for the (Canadian) national team, which the season bumps up against. That training camp I think starts a month from the end of the season.
“At the end of the day, we’re going to do the best that we can. Every team’s going through some version of this because of all the circumstances. This is our particular case. At the end of the day, we’re not going to sacrifice anything long-term with any of our players, but certainly with a guy like Shai, and that’s, I don’t know the details of that, our medical people handle that, but until somebody comes to me and says ‘Hey, this guy’s ready to rock and it’s not going to compromise him at all in the long-term,’ then I’m on board with doing what we’re doing with him and being really, really cautious.”
Daigneault did not say anything definitive in that, but with seven games left in the season, it would be unsurprising if the Thunder kept him out for the remainder of the year.
Gilgeous-Alexander is having a breakout campaign, averaging career-highs with 23.7 points and 5.9 assists while also shooting at career-best numbers despite the increased role. If this is indeed the end of his third season, he shot 50.8% from the field and 41.8% from 3.
Oklahoma City enters Tuesday tied with the Orlando Magic for the fourth-worst record in the NBA and just one game better than the Minnesota Timberwolves, who have the third-best odds in the draft lottery.
This post originally appeared on OKCThunderWire. Follow us on Facebook!