The NBA season hasn’t even begun yet, and New Orleans Pelicans All-Star big man Anthony Davis is already banged up again.
According to a report by Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, Davis is expected to miss the next 10-15 days with a Grade 2 right ankle sprain. The former No. 1 overall pick suffered the injury in a preseason loss to the Houston Rockets in Beijing on Wednesday.
The 23-year-old Davis averaged 24.3 points and 10.3 rebounds per game in 2015-16 but was limited to 61 appearances due to various ailments including a knee injury and the lingering effects of a torn labrum. The durability concerns are very real for Davis, who has missed an average of 17 games a season in his four-year NBA career thus far.
The Pelicans open the regular season on October 26 against the Denver Nuggets, which puts Davis’ availability to begin the year in doubt. The team will already be without Tyreke Evans and Jrue Holiday to start, and their frontcourt depth is suspect after Ryan Anderson left in free agency. New Orleans will likely rely on some combination of Dante Cunningham, the newly-signed Terrence Jones, and rookie Cheick Diallo to fill in at the power forward position for however long The Brow is sidelined for.
