Cleveland Cavaliers forward Anthony Bennett out 3 weeks with patellar tendon strain
By Brad Rowland
Just as he was beginning to shed the potential label of “worst number one pick in NBA history”, Cleveland Cavaliers rookie forward Anthony Bennett has been derailed by injury.
Cavaliers announce that rookie forward Anthony Bennett has a left patellar tendon strain and will be out three weeks.
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) March 10, 2014
Yahoo’s Marc Spears brings the news (via an official announcement by the Cavs) that Bennett will be sidelined for approximately three weeks with a left patellar tendon strain, and that’s a shame for Bennett’s development. In the early going, the 20-year-old Bennett was an abject disaster for Cleveland, shooting just 31.8% from the field prior to the All-Star break, but recently, he has been much more effective.
In the last 15 games, Bennett has his shooting at a reasonable 47.5% from the floor, and the “counting” stats have followed to the tune of 6.7 points and 4.1 rebounds per contest during that time period. Bennett’s PER is still languishing at 6.90 for the season, but given where it started from (it was negative at one point this season), that is a vast improvement.
People that wrote Bennett off after just a few weeks are looking to be off-base at this point, but injuries are never good for development (or conditioning), and this isn’t going to help.