Nemanja Nedovic has stress fracture in foot, Warriors status up in the air?

Warriors guard Nemanja Nedovic has a stress fracture in his right foot and will be forced to pull out of the FIBA World Cup, according to the Bay Area News Group.

"The Warriors were informed guard Nemanja Nedovic suffered a stress fracture in his right foot while training with the Serbian national team for the FIBA World Cup, a Warriors spokesman said Tuesday.The Warriors are waiting to review X rays to confirm the fracture after Nedovic reportedly suffered the injury while scoring five points in eight minutes in Sunday’s 82-69 exhibition win against Bosnia in Italy."

Serbia will probably miss his presence in the tournament, but more importantly  this continues to cast doubt upon Nedovic’s status with the Warriors. After drafting him with the last pick in the first round last season, he really hasn’t had a great start to his career. Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News reported in July that the Warriors still hadn’t made their decision on exercising his third-year option, and that they felt Aaron Craft had out-played Nedovic in Las Vegas. Plus, with incoming coach Steve Kerr manning the summer league team, that first impression of Nedovic in summer league may have spoken volumes for the new regime.

Kawakami’s read on the situation — that Nedovic struggled to get into the lane and played poor defense — was also my evaluation of him this summer. I’ve never particularly been a huge fan of Nedovic for especially that reason, as I was never impressed with his first step. Since so much of his game is predicated upon getting into the lane, I’m just not sure how he can be successful without that first step.

The Warriors are going to have to tie up quite a bit of money in Klay Thompson and Draymond Green next offseason, which means getting rid of Nedovic’s $1.15 million might actually make sense despite the fact that it’s rare to decline a third-year option on a first-rounder’s contract. This isn’t about them specifically liking Craft better than Nedovic. It’s about the fact that they like someone like Craft better than Nedovic, and think they can easily fill his roster spot with a minimum contract.

And that was before the injury. Now Nedovic is hurt and will be out of commission for the rest of the summer, meaning Kerr won’t get another look at him before the season starts. Given the confluence of factors at play here, I think there is a very real chance that Nedovic ends up out of a job next offseason.