During the Toronto Raptors’ game Wednesday night, Delon Wright left early with a shoulder injury. What could this mean for the team moving forward?
The Toronto Raptors are off to a great start with a record of 9-5 on the season. Although most of the credit could go to DeMar DeRozan, they have seen a lot of players step up. One especially relevant name is Delon Wright, a young player out of the University of Utah.
In their game against against the New Orleans Pelicans Wednesday night, Wright left early with a shoulder injury. While fighting for a rebound over Pelicans center DeMarcus Cousins, the two collided and left Wright holding his shoulder. He left the game right after and did not return.
This happened to be his right shoulder, which isn’t a good sign since he’s already had surgery on it once back in 2016. He had a torn labrum then, which would lead to him missing four months of play.
So what does this mean for the Raptors? Well, it’s not very good news. At the guard position, Wright was being used quite a bit in their rotation. Although the Raptors still have Kyle Lowry, their depth in the point guard position is lacking.
Delon Wright injury. pic.twitter.com/eWYGCWVi35
— Raptors Republic (@raptorsrepublic) November 16, 2017
So far this season, Wright has been able to put up some solid numbers — nothing crazy, but definitely enough to help the team win some games. As of right now, he’s averaging 7.6 points, 2.6 assists and 2.4 rebounds per game.
He has also seen his minutes per game rise since last year. During the 2016-17 season, Wright was averaging roughly 16 minutes per game during his 27 games with the team. This year he has been playing close to 21 minutes per game.
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This is only the beginning. During the last season, Wright was shooting the ball at a pretty average rate. His field goal percentage was 42.2 percent with a true shooting percentage of 53.5 percent. This year, he has seen his field goal percentage rise roughly 10 percent as he is shooting 52.3 percent with a true shooting percentage of 67 percent.
Now that all of the stats have been laid out, let’s talk about why these are important. Although his usage percentage is not very high, he is still being relied on heavily for the team — more so than the third point guard option Fred VanVleet, who will be taking over the secondary spot in his absence.
This could send a chill down Raptors fans’ spines, but it shouldn’t. The second-year player out of Wichita State has not seen much of the floor during his time with the Raptors, but he still has some experience.
So far this season, VanVleet is averaging 4.5 points, 2.1 assists and 1.2 rebounds per game. These stats show that he is making the most out of his limited time spent on the floor, which is roughly 14 minutes a game.
It is definitely going to hurt not having Wright, but it isn’t devastating, and it hasn’t been confirmed yet that he is going to be missing significant time. However, if he does end up missing quite a bit of time to recover, VanVleet is not the worst option a team could have.
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Kyle Lowry will surely see his minutes increase if Wright is out, which could be a good opportunity for him to start scoring the ball efficiently again. For now, we just have to wait and see how bad the injury truly is.