DeMarre Carroll has knee surgery, as Raptors play the long game
Toronto Raptors forward underwent arthroscopic surgery on his troublesome right knee on Wednesday morning, a procedure aimed at correcting an issue that has limited both his ability to get on the court and his effectiveness when he’s made it there in his first season north of the border.
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From the Raptors’ announcement:
The Toronto Raptors announced Wednesday forward DeMarre Carroll had arthroscopic surgery this morning on his right knee. The procedure was performed by Dr. David Altchek at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. Carroll’s status will be updated as appropriate.
Carroll sat out Monday’s game at Cleveland with a swollen right knee. He had played in the previous five contests after missing nine games (December 7-22) with a right knee contusion.
The Raptors’ statement actually doesn’t tell us more than it does:
While it remains unclear how long we’ll have to wait for further clarification on what, exactly, is wrong with DeMarre’s knee, Raptors head coach Dwane Casey indicated that we shouldn’t expect a post-scope Carroll to return to the court any time soon:
That said, we should expect to see Carroll back at some point, according to point guard Kyle Lowry:
… but it might not be until after the All-Star break:
That’s unfortunate news for a Raptors club that paid Carroll handsomely this summer — four years, $60 million, eagerly given on the first day of July’s free-agency period — to leave an Atlanta Hawks squad where he’d become one of the league’s premier 3-and-D wing players. The Raptors imported Carroll to help helm a hoped-for defensive resurgence after slipping from ninth in the NBA in points allowed per possession two seasons ago, during Toronto’s first Atlantic Division title under Dwane Casey, to 23rd in the league in defensive efficiency during last season’s repeat run, but have rarely gotten to see Carroll operating at full strength.
The Raptors enter Wednesday’s play ranked a middle-of-the-pack 14th in the league in defensive efficiency — an improvement from where they were, but not yet where they want to be — but they’ve actually performed quite a bit better thus far with him off the court (holding opponents to 100.4 points per 100 possessions, a top-10-caliber mark, in 998 non-Carroll minutes) than on it (allowing 103.6 points-per-100, a near-bottom-10 rate, in 735 DeMarre minutes).
Carroll’s off-ball activity on both ends of the court has seemed off from his always-moving work with the Hawks (and, before that, the Utah Jazz, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets and Memphis Grizzlies), and his numbers have dropped pretty much across the board — his field-goal percentage and per-minute scoring; the share of available offensive and defensive rebounds he pulls down; the frequency with which he assists on his teammates’ buckets, gets to the basket and himself to the free-throw line; etc. The sole notable exceptions: his steal percentage (he’s forcing cough-ups on 2.7 percent of opponents’ possessions while he’s on the floor) and his usage rate. That first one’s a good thing, but that second one isn’t; essentially, Carroll’s commandeering a higher share of offensive possessions this year than he ever has in his career, and doing fewer productive things with them.
It’s hard to fault Carroll too much for all that, though, given how rarely he’s looked like his best self while struggling through injuries for most of the campaign. The 29-year-old wing has missed 13 of the Raptors’ first 36 games, battling plantar fasciitis shortly after the start of the season before missing nine games coming last month in an attempt to rest his ailing and swollen knee, which he said he injured by knocking knees with Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan dring the teams’ Nov. 22 meeting. He’s shot the ball better of late, making 41.7 percent of his 3-pointers since returning to the lineup, but has clearly not been himself while trying to work through lacking mobility and a minutes restriction.
Carroll logged just 24 minutes in Toronto’s Sunday loss to the Chicago Bulls, and seemed frustrated after the game at his inability to slow down Bulls All-Star Jimmy Butler, who scored a team-record 40 points in the second half to lead Chicago to victory. From Doug Smith of the Toronto Star:
“I’m going to be quiet on what I really want to say,” said Carroll, who played only 24 minutes and just 10 in the second half. “I take it on myself. I know I’m not all of the way there.”
While Carroll was forced to watch most of the second half, Butler played all 24 minutes and made 12 of 19 field goal attempts, 10 of 11 foul shots and two three-pointers, including a dagger over Carroll with 30 seconds to go to put the Bulls up by one.
“Like I said, I don’t want to speak too much,” Carroll said. “I’m not all of the way there. He did what he’s supposed to do when a guy’s not all of the way there. I’ll see him again. It’s no big deal.”
The degree to which Carroll’s “not all of the way there” became a bit more clear when he sat out of the Raptors’ Monday loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, which saw the defending Eastern Conference champion pull away in the second half behind scoring bursts from LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and J.R. Smith — three perimeter players on whom Casey likely wouldn’t have minded getting to sic his top wing defender — and a lot more clear after Carroll’s comments about his return to the sideline. From the Sun’s Chris O’Leary:
“It’s one of those things where I could play, but me playing at 65 per cent is not . . . I don’t think everybody looks at it as beneficial,” Carroll said.
“(That) kind of makes me sound selfish, but I’m not. It’s just that Alex (McKechnie, the team’s assistant coach and director of sport science), he wanted to hold me out.
“He said he felt like I’m putting myself at risk more out there playing and the way I play. We’re going to go through a couple of procedures and see. I’ll see what the next step is.” […]
“I’m frustrated right now. I’m sitting in my room, looking at the ceiling all night, especially after (Sunday) night’s loss because there’s certain things I knew I could give and me sitting on the bench, just watching Jimmy score all those points kind of,” Carroll said and trailed off.
“What can I do? I don’t want to say too much, because you know how the Raptors do, we keep our stuff hush. I don’t want to say too much, but at the same time man, only if you knew, you know what I mean? Only if you knew. It’s one of those things.”
And now, it’s one of those things that will keep Carroll out for the foreseeable future, and that, according to Casey, will give reserve swingmen Terrence Ross (whose play has picked up on both ends over the last 10 games) and James Johnson (who’s averaging 8.6 points, 3.4 assists and two assists in 26.8 minutes per game in seven starts this season) opportunities to run with Toronto’s starters in his absence. Even more time without a fully functioning version of Carroll certainly isn’t a good thing for the Raptors, but if an early-January procedure and week-by-week siesta increases the likelihood of getting that Carroll by spring and early summer — when a Raptors squad that has bowed out in the opening round of the Eastern Conference playoffs in consecutive years figures to need his versatility, toughness and experience most — then it’s a short-term burden well worth bearing, according to Blake Murphy of Raptors Republic:
However long Carroll misses, everyone needs to practice patience; he’ll be measured almost entirely by how he changes this team’s outlook in the playoffs, and there’s little sense valuing the regular season over that end. The Raptors can get to the playoffs without him, and they need to take whatever lumps come their way in waiting for him to get back to 100 percent, a place he’s rarely been this season. […]
For the Raptors as a whole, the timing couldn’t be better, if Carroll had to go down. The Raptors have the Nets, Wizards, and Sixers this week, then one game in eight days, then a relatively friendly seven-game home-stand. And they’ll want Carroll to find a groove entering the playoffs, so it’s much better that this happens now than later, if it was going to happen at all.
Cold comfort, to be sure, but that’s better than no comfort at all, and Torontonians know a thing or two about handling the cold.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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