76ers Forward Robert Covington Expected to Miss 2 Weeks With Injury
Sixers forward Robert Covington is helped off the floor after suffering a right knee sprain in Friday’s preseason finale against the Celtics | Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports
76ers forward Robert Covington has suffered a sprained medial collateral ligament and bone bruise in his right knee, according to Shams Charania of Yahoo! Sports.
According to the report, the injury is expected to sideline the forward for two weeks.
The Sixers have not yet confirmed the extent of the injury.
Covington suffered the injury driving to the basket during the fourth quarter of Friday night’s preseason finale against the Boston Celtics.
The injury puts the Sixers in a bit of a bind. They were already expected to begin the season without Joel Embiid (foot), Tony Wroten (knee), Kendall Marshall (knee), and Carl Landry (wrist). It is also uncertain whether guard Nik Stauskas will be ready for the start of the season. Stauskas missed the entire preseason because of a stress reaction in his right tibia.
Covington was likely to be Brett Brown’s starting small forward. The injury deprives Brown of one of his best perimeter shooters, as Covington connected on 37.4% of his 446 three point attempts last season and shot 37.5% from three point range during the preseason.
Covington started all seven preseason games for the Sixers, averaging 12.0 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game in just over 24 minutes per night.
The Sixers can apply for an exception to expand their inactive list to four, which would allow them to temporarily carry sixteen players on their regular season roster. The exception will not be available to them to start the season, however, as league rules dictate that a team has to have four players miss at least three games before a team can apply for the exception.
The Sixers have to submit their opening day rosters on October 26th, and will have to trim their roster size down from the 20 man roster they carried during the preseason to 15.
Derek Bodner covers the 76ers for Philadelphia magazine. Follow @DerekBodnerNBA on Twitter.
