Right before the Thanksgiving holiday, one of the biggest free agent signings in the history of the Toronto Raptors went down with an injury. DeMarre Carroll bumped knees with DeAndre Jordan of the Los Angeles Clippers and he went down. A knee contusion was diagnosed by the Toronto Raptors. Carroll played the next seven games but then he missed the next nine games but eventually returned the day after Christmas.
In Carroll’s return, he hasn’t looked the same at all. He was playing almost 24 minutes per game but he only was averaging 9.6 points per game, shooting 40% from the field but only pulling in 3.8 rebounds per game. His defensive numbers are down to only 0.8 steals per game and just about nothing going on in the blocks department. Something was obviously wrong with Carroll stemming from that injury.
It now appears that there might be a reason for Carroll’s recent bad play. He’s been fighting a pretty serious knee injury.
Following from the Raptors Media Relations twitter account.
The #Raptors announced DeMarre Carroll had arthroscopic surgery this morning on his right knee. Status will be updated as appropriate.
— RaptorsMR (@RaptorsMR) January 6, 2016
Where do the Raptors go from here? Well it appears that they have survived without him. Since Carroll’s injury was officially diagnosed and forced him to miss time after the Raptors game against the Los Angeles Lakers on December 7th, they have gone 9-6 in that span including big wins over the San Antonio Spurs, Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks.
They can survive without him, it is possible but it might be hard. They can supplement his loss with James Johnson on the defensive end and Terrence Ross on offense along with mixing in Patrick Patterson but it’s not an ideal scenario.
Luckily enough, the Raptors backcourt of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan have been playing on an All-Star level so they should be alright for now, depending on when Carroll does return.
UPDATE: Carroll is expected to miss up to 8 weeks with his knee surgery. Following from Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star.
As I just told @HayesTSN, I'm hearing an intiial estimate of 6-8 weeks on DeMarre Carroll, but it's still early.
— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) January 6, 2016
