It's understandable that Nik Stauskas sounds a little frustrated that he won't be able to play in the Philadelphia 76ers' final preseason game on Friday.
The shooting guard has been sidelined since Oct. 2 due to a stress reaction in his right tibia, and the initial timeline of a two-week absence has been amended with the hope he can be ready for the team's Oct. 28 season opener.
"I want to be out there," Stauskas said Tuesday. "But I trust our training staff and I trust our doctors. I've been making a lot of progress. ... But with an injury like this, they just wanted to make sure that it's healed all the way so it doesn't nag me throughout the 82-game season."
Stress reactions are strange. They're injuries until they're not, with little means of repairing them outside of rest and patience. The latter is key with this type of injury: the risk of recurrence with a stress reaction is fairly high if it's not allowed to heal completely. Jrue Holiday and JaVale McGee have been dealing with complications from stress injuries in their legs for more than two seasons now.
Acquired as essentially payment for taking on additional salary for the Sacramento Kings this offseason, Stauskas is set to figure prominently at the two-guard, perhaps even starting. The 21-year-old had a disappointing rookie season but offers the shooting-starved 76ers - who ranked 29th in 3-point percentage despite taking the sixth-most attempts - an additional long-range threat.
While Stauskas knocked down just 32.2 percent of his outside looks as a freshman, he was a 44.1 percent career 3-point shooter in college, shot well in the preseason and summer league last year (42.9 percent), and was torrid from outside for Canada in the FIBA Americas Championship this summer (18-of-36). The stroke is beautiful, and he should have the green light in head coach Brett Brown's offense, even if it takes him some time to get up to speed.
If Brown isn't comfortable starting Stauskas for the opener, JaKarr Sampson seems in line to get the nod. Sampson has started in all five of his preseason appearances, averaging seven points and 3.2 rebounds, and Brown started him 32 times a year ago.