Detroit Pistons: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s Injury Setback

It may only still be preseason, but unfortunately that hasn’t stopped the injury news from building up around the NBA.

The news of Kevin Durant‘s fractured foot was undoubtedly the biggest of Sunday’s injury bulletins, but Detroit Pistons fans will be hoping they’re not about to have a problem of their own. Second-year swingman Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was forced into leaving his team to suffer a narrow two-point defeat to the Washington Wizards after injuring his knee in the third quarter.

Caldwell-Pope seemed in significant pain as he was helped off the court following an uncomfortable twist of his left knee. The Pistons are currently describing the injury as a sprain, and will hope that it proves to be no worse than that. Talking to the media after the game, Detroit head coach Stan Van Gundy gave an update on the next steps the team will take as a precaution with Caldwell-Pope. According to Jake Rill of the Associated Press, Van Gundy said:

"We’ll re-evaluate it going forward. We’ll get him an MRI and we’ll go from there, see what’s going on."

In the meantime, Caldwell-Pope joins Will Bynum and Jodie Meeks as Pistons’ guards struggling with injuries. Van Gundy currently isn’t too concerned, taking it all in his stride as just part of the process of NBA life.

"It happens, we’ll see what they say with (Caldwell-Pope) when they get it done. You go through these things, everybody goes through them."

Although he is, of course, right and if the team has to suffer injuries it can be better to do so in preseason rather than after the big tipoff, for Caldwell-Pope in particular this injury could be a real blow. Even assuming the results of the MRI come back with no signs of any more extensive damage, it will undoubtedly impact on the Georgia native’s fine tuning and final preparations.

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It could even potentially cause him to miss the first couple of games of the season, if it turned out to be a particularly bad sprain.

Caldwell-Pope would still have plenty of time to get back up to full speed, but as someone who’s still relatively new in the league, it’s something he could do without. Particularly as the upcoming season seems to hold so much promise for the 21-year-old.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had an outstanding Summer League campaign, looking head and shoulders above the rest of the competition on offer in Orlando. Then there’s just a general sense of how well his game seems to fit in with what the Pistons are looking to achieve moving forward.

The appointment of Stan Van Gundy as head coach was a perfect fit for utilizing and further developing Caldwell-Pope’s skill set. The former Georgia Bulldog is an excellent shooter, particularly from distance, and a tenacious and willing defender. With these both being areas of emphasis for Van Gundy, any Pistons improvement this season could well coincide with the emergence of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope into a more significant role.

With such opportunities up for grabs for the youngster, the Pistons will hold their breath for the results of Caldwell-Pope’s MRI results. With a bit of luck, he’ll be back at full tilt within the next week or so.