{"id":533,"date":"2016-09-10T09:53:45","date_gmt":"2016-09-10T14:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/?p=533"},"modified":"2016-09-10T09:53:45","modified_gmt":"2016-09-10T14:53:45","slug":"report-josh-richardson-suffers-partially-torn-mcl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2016\/09\/10\/report-josh-richardson-suffers-partially-torn-mcl\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Josh Richardson Suffers Partially Torn MCL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Miami Heat<\/strong>\u00a0shooting\u00a0guard <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/r\/richajo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Josh Richardson<\/a><\/strong> has suffered a partially torn medial collateral ligament in his right knee. Richardson reportedly sustained the injury during practice on <strong>Friday<\/strong>. The timetable for Richardson&#8217;s return will depend on the rehab process.<\/p>\n<p>News of Richardson&#8217;s injury was first reported by <strong>Shams Charania<\/strong> of <strong>The Vertical<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Miami guard Josh Richardson has sustained a partially torn MCL in right knee, league sources tell The Vertical. Return time based on rehab.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/774354701123026944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 9, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Josh Richardson Suffers Torn MCL<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Last season, Richardson averaged 6.6 points, 1.4 assists and 2.1 rebounds per game. Richardson, 22, has quickly developed into a valuable impact player for the Heat. This injury is a major set back, as Richardson\u00a0was set to compete for the starting shooting guard spot. The position\u00a0opened up after the departure of Miami Heat legend <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wadedw01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dwyane Wade<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Whether or not Richardson starts for the Heat, he is still a very valuable player off the bench. Richardson is a very competitive perimeter defender and shot 46.1 percent from three point range last season. The guard played 52 games last season and provided head coach <strong>Erik Spoelstra<\/strong> with a reliable bench option.<\/p>\n<p>Richardson has improved rapidly and was playing in the <strong>D-League<\/strong> just last season. He\u00a0could ultimately become the long term replacement for Dwyane Wade. Last year Richardson proved his worth, and made a solid case to remain with the Heat long term.<\/p>\n<p>With Richardson sidelined, it looks as if off-season signing <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/waitedi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dion Waiters<\/a><\/strong> has the advantage to become the starter at shooting guard. Although, combo guard <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/johnsty01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyler Johnson<\/a><\/strong> may be a more sensible option for Spoelstra, especially seeing as Johnson was recently re-signed to a four-year $50 million deal.<\/p>\n<p>With the Heat moving on from Wade, it looks to be a three-way battle. Waiters, Johnson and Richardson all look like capable replacements. Whoever ends up winning the battle will have a difficult job living up to the expectation of being Wade&#8217;s replacement.<\/p>\n<p>Richardson was drafted 40th overall in the second round of the 2015 draft out of the <strong>University of<\/strong> <strong>Tennessee<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/106365727\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/106365727?et=pSOY0Hl3SMB-9_sNlCt9HQ&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=IeNx1zLG5QHTwTmf-MuqMnmCFP0T2ajCbDlaHFZZY70=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Miami Heat guard Josh Richardson has suffered a partially torn MCL in his right knee. The injury was sustained during practice on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":638,"featured_media":552,"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":[16,2,62,3],"tags":[65,254,255,96],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heat","category-featured","category-nba","category-news","tag-basketball","tag-josh-richardson","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba"],"modified_by":"Harrison Marcus","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533","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\/638"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}