{"id":3761,"date":"2017-01-20T09:14:23","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T14:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/?p=3761"},"modified":"2017-01-20T09:14:23","modified_gmt":"2017-01-20T14:14:23","slug":"jodie-meeks-out-thumb-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2017\/01\/20\/jodie-meeks-out-thumb-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Jodie Meeks Out 4-6 Weeks with Thumb Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Orlando Magic<\/strong>‘s season seemingly falling apart, they could do without an injury to a key player. When Jodie Meeks<\/a><\/strong> exited Wednesday night’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans<\/strong> with a thumb injury, the signs were bad.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Jodie Meeks Out 4-6 Weeks with Thumb Injury<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Orlando Sentinel<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>reported that Meeks has sustained a dislocated thumb in his shooting hand. Although Meeks will not require surgery, he could face up to six weeks on the sideline. With fellow\u00a0shooting guard\u00a0Evan Fournier<\/a><\/strong> also injured for the Magic, Orlando now looks very thin at the two spot.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Next Man Up<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Although the injury to Meeks initially seems like a problem for the Magic, Orlando already has a solution sitting on the bench. Former first-round pick Mario Hezonja<\/a><\/strong> has found limited opportunities this season under coach Frank Vogel<\/strong>, but he could now see an expanded role with the team. The 6’8″ swingman from Croatia<\/strong> has proved to be a sharpshooter in his time with the Magic. Hezonja shot 43\u00a0percent from the field in his rookie season, including 34 percent from three-point range. Though his defense has been a major concern for the Magic, Hezonja could be a good short term solution until Fournier, the starter, returns from injury. The rest of the minutes at shooting guard will likely be split between point-guards D.J. Augustin<\/a><\/strong> and C.J. Watson<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Help from the D-League<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

It would be a somewhat foolish venture for the Magic to rush into a trade following the injury to Meeks. An alternative route the Magic could take to mitigate the impact of Meeks’ injury would be to call up some players from their D-League<\/strong> team, the Erie BayHawks<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Guard C.J. Wilcox<\/strong><\/a>, who is currently playing in Erie, has previous experience in the NBA. The former L.A. Clipper<\/strong> is currently averaging 12.5 PPG\u00a0in Erie and is shooting 51.3 percent from the floor. Although not a likely solution, Wilcox is certainly a player the Magic could turn to if needed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The injury to Jodie Meeks is undoubtedly a blow for the Magic. However, with players such as Hezonja ready to fill in, Orlando shouldn’t worry too much.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jodie Meeks out: The guard has sustained a dislocated thumb in his shooting hand. Although Meeks won’t require surgery, he’ll be out for four to six weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1793,"featured_media":2964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,62,3],"tags":[677,131,676,473,96,605,136],"class_list":["post-3761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magic","category-nba","category-news","tag-c-j-wilcox","tag-evan-fournier","tag-jodie-meeks","tag-mario-hezonja","tag-nba","tag-nba-eastern-conference","tag-orlando-magic"],"modified_by":"Lior Kozai (Managing Editor)","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1793"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}