Pacers F Danny Granger shut down for remainder of preseason

It was a long off-season for Indiana Pacers forward Danny Granger, as he was pressing toward recovery in the aftermath of surgery on his left knee, but Granger’s road to redemption hit a snag over the weekend, and it will affect him for at least the next week.

Scott Agness of Pacers.com is reporting (see above) that Granger has been shut down for the preseason as a result of a left calf strain that he suffered over the weekend. On the surface, a calf strain isn’t an alarming trend, but when you consider that Granger’s knee injury came in the same leg as the calf problem, sirens begin to go off.

Fortunately for Indiana, the team displayed an ability to perform at an extremely high level without Granger (see the 2013 NBA playoffs), so they can afford to have a certain level of caution with him. With that said, Granger is their 2nd-most explosive scorer (at worst), and most experts believe that he could bring a dimension that they sorely need in support of Paul George and Roy Hibbert.

Stay tuned as reports continue for Granger, but it’s tough to argue with the decision from the Pacers, and at this point, the injury-prone label is creeping up on Danny Granger.