The Sacramento Kings will avoid having have to play without their best player, at least for now, as the team announced on Monday that Domantas Sabonis is going to try to play through the fracture he suffered in his non-shooting hand.
This news comes after Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported on Saturday that the All-Star center was getting further evaluation on the injury, which happened on Friday against the Washington Wizards.
The Kings say Domantas Sabonis has sustained an avulsion fracture of the ulnar collateral ligament (right thumb) but will try to play through the injury on his non-shooting hand.
Sabonis is listed as questionable for Tuesday’s game against Denver.
More: https://t.co/LGN9cVpMwn
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) December 27, 2022
Woj gave more details on the injury in his story on Saturday.
Jeff Stotts of the injury analysis website In Street Clothes provided further analysis on what this injury could mean for Sabonis, in addition to past examples of players playing through it:
Re: Domantas Sabonis: An avulsion fracture means the UCL of his thumb tore away a piece of bone, not that the ligament is fractured. Multiple players, including Chris Paul & Avery Bradley, have sustained the injury. Bradley opted to play through the injury & did not miss time.
— Jeff Stotts (@InStreetClothes) December 27, 2022
Sabonis has averaged 17.9 points and a career-high 12.4 rebounds while shooting an also-career-high 61.4% from the field, and the Kings are already struggling to find center depth behind him, so any significant absence by him would be costly for Sacramento if he ultimately can’t play through this injury.
But while this is unfortunate news for Sabonis and the Kings no matter what, for now the silver lining here is that he is left-handed, so at least this injury is not to his shooting hand.
Stay tuned to Sactown Royalty and this page for more updates on Sabonis and his status as this breaking news story continues to develop.
