Huerter Out Two Weeks With Shoulder Injury
Hawks shooting guard Kevin Huerter will miss at least the next two weeks due to a strained left rotator cuff, the Hawks announced Thursday afternoon.
The injury was a result of a shooting foul committed by Denver's Nikola Jokić in Atlanta's win over the Nuggets Tuesday, which caused Huerter to exit the game after just 16 minutes. He had made his first four shots -- including three 3s -- for 11 points and tallied three assists when the exited the game.
The loss of Huerter will be a significant one for the Hawks, who are already down a starter and leaning on Trae Young to create the bulk of the team's offense. Without the team's best secondary playmaker in the lineup, even more will be placed on Young's shoulders over a difficult stretch of the season. Atlanta will face the Suns, Clippers, Lakers, Bucks (twice), Pistons, Raptors, and Timberwolves over the next two weeks.
Huerter had just begun to reemerge as a real weapon for Atlanta, who will be hard-pressed to replace his passing and shooting from the backcourt. The second-year guard averaged 14.3 points and three assists per game over his last three games (including the injury-shortened outing against Denver) on 55.6 percent 3-point shooting.
In a best-case scenario, the current timetable would put Huerter back on the court November 27 in Milwaukee or November 29 against Indiana, but there's no guarantee he'll be cleared to play during that exact window.
Lloyd Pierce told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Huerter avoided the worst-case scenario that could have resulted from the play, and that there were no signs of a tear in the MRI results.
