Nene Out Six Weeks, Rest of Regular Season For Wizards

Nene Injury
Nene Injury
Feb 23 2014 Cleveland OH USA Washington Wizards power forward Nene Hilario 42 reacts on the court after a knee injury in the third quarter against the Cleveland Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena David Richard USA TODAY Sports

Washington Wizards center Nene is expected to miss up to six-weeks with a sprained MCL, team officials confirmed to ESPN on Monday.

As much as the playoff-chasing Wiz are expected to miss the team’s third leading scorer (16.5), and rebounder (5.8), the news could have been worse as it was initially feared the 31-year-old, 11-year veteran would be lost for the remainder of the season.

The 6-foot-11, 250 pound power forward was hurt during the Wizard’s 96-83 Sunday night win over Cleveland. Immediately following the injury, he had to be helped from the court by teammates and was unable to walk. At 28-28, presently the Wizards are the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference, but if Nene misses the full six-weeks, as some suspect he will, he could miss the entire remainder of the regular season.

All season long, the Wizards have heavily relied on a top-10 defense with Nene as the anchor. Washington has allowed an average of just 92 points over their last four games with Nene averaging a block an outing.

As a nod to Nene’s importance, ESPN points out in 1,256 minutes without him the Wizards have defended opponents on average about as well as the overmatched 19-37 Lakers have. Since acquiring him from Denver in March of 2012, the Wiz are 60-61 with him in the lineup and 8-34 in games he’s missed, including 1-6 this season when he was dealing with a nagging right Achilles tendon.

The Wizards are now expected to turn to a frontcourt, big-man rotation of Marcin Gortat, Kevin Seraphin and Trevor Booker in Nene’s absence. The team is also rumored to be interested in signing veteran forward Drew Gooden to a 10-day contract.

In all, Nene has appeared in 49 games for the Wizards this season, averaging 14.2 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.24 steals in 30.1 minutes. On Saturday, a night before Nene suffered his injury, he recorded a career high 30 points against New Orleans, including the game-winning dunk with less than a second remaining.

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Glenn Minnis
Glenn Minnis is an XN Sports NBA contributor. He has written for the Chicago Tribune, ESPN, BET and AOL. Follow him on Twitter at @glennnyc.