While Devin Booker and Cam Johnson aren’t coming back any time soon, fans do have some hope for Monday’s game against the Knicks. The hope is what? Landry Shamet and Cam Payne are listed as probable for their game against New York.
Shamet, sore achilles tendon, and Johnson, sore foot, will most likely play; barring any setbacks, we should be seeing a semi-healthy Suns team.
Payne has missed the Suns’ last nine games. Shamet has missed the last three games. Over the course of missing these players, Phoenix has gone 4-6 over the past ten games.
The game begins tomorrow at 1 PM Arizona Time. Still no Booker, Crowder, and Johnson; however, with Johnson, he has been ramping up his on-court load. While not being cleared for contact, these are the right steps being taken for his must-needed return.
According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, confirmed by the New Orleans Pelicans, Zion Williamson and CJ McCollum have been shut down for the remainder of the season.
This season has gone very poorly for New Orleans due to majority of their players being injured throughout the season, which has caused them to drop to 14th in the Western Conference.
Williamson, who has recently been dealing with a back injury, only played 30 games this season. He’s only played in 214 career games in six seasons.
McCollum, who has been dealing with a foot contusion injury, only played in 57 games this season. This is a nine game drop off from last season.
With the Pelicans being 21-54, they saw no point in trying to rush their starting line players back onto the court. They will now look ahead to the offseason’s draft and free agency.
According to multiple reports, there was a growing feeling around the league that Taylor Jenkins was going to be fired in the offseason.
The timing was very surprising, but the firing was not for many people associated with the NBA. In fact, it was almost expected he wouldn’t return for the next season.
Why the feeling was growing so much was due to Memphis overhauling his coaching staff and completely cutting him out for the future.
“The anticipation was they’d get bounced in the first round and he’d be fired,” said Tim MacMahon on Monday’s Hoop Collective Podcast. “That’s honestly been the anticipation since last summer. All season long. Like the odds of Taylor Jenkins coming back next year were very slim. But to be fired with nine games left in the season… a playoff team. Yeah, the timing was shocking.”
Jenkins was their head coach for six seasons before getting canned, he was hired back in 2019 to replace current Detroit Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff before they selected Ja Morant with the second overall pick.