Brooklyn Nets center Nic Claxton has been out of the lineup since Brooklyn’s season opener on Oct. 25 against the Cleveland Cavaliers when he suffered what was initially called an ankle sprain. After Saturday’s game against the Boston Celtics, there were reports that appear to make Claxton’s injury status worse than originally let on.
On Sunday, Erik Slater of ClutchPoints reported that Claxton said that instead of dealing with just an ankle sprain that he’s in fact dealing with a high-ankle sprain. As Slater pointed out in his post on X, high-ankle sprains have an estimated recovery period of 6-to-8 weeks.
If that timeline holds, Claxton could be out until Dec. 6 at the earliest and Dec. 20 when the Nets host the New York Knicks at the latest. As of this writing, Claxton has missed five of six games, but Brooklyn is at 3-3, including tough clutch losses to the Cavaliers and the Dallas Mavericks.
In Claxton’s absence, Brooklyn head coach has elected to go small by putting Dorian Finney-Smith as the center and the moves has paid dividends so far. Finney-Smith, 30, is averaging 15.2 points (third on the team) and 5.5 rebounds (fifth) per game while shooting 54.8% from the field and 48.9% from behind the three-point line.
Nic Claxton revealed last night that he's dealing with a high ankle sprain.
The Nets have been calling Claxton day-to-day, but high ankle sprains typically take 6-8 weeks to heal, per @NLM_NIH. I'd expect Clax to be out for an extended period.
— Erik Slater (@erikslater_) November 5, 2023
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