Report: Marc Gasol to miss “weeks” with hamstring injury

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Raptors centre Marc Gasol will miss “a period” of weeks” of play due to the hamstring injury he suffered against the Detroit Pistons on December 18.

While it’s no surprise that Woj is the first one out with an injury update, it’s a pretty nebulous one, isn’t it? “A period of weeks” could mean two weeks... or four... or 15. But, until we get official word from team sources on Gasol’s injury status (and that of Norman Powell) this will have to do.

Now, I don’t have to tell you that this news sucks. Even if you felt Gasol was too hesitant on offense and wasn’t filling up the boxscore enough, has impact on the team overall has been inarguably positive. And it did, in fact, look like he was finally starting to take a more active scoring role over the past few games. The team will be worse off without him out there.

Still, in an effort to channel Sean Woodley’s “it’s fine” energy at all times, we have to look for some positives in the injury news as well. And there are some! Such as:

• More minutes for the chaos group of Terence Davis, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Chris Boucher
• Rondae at centre minutes!
• We might see what the Raptors have in Dewan Hernandez
• The upcoming schedule, once the Dallas-Boston-Boston-Indiana stretch is done, is on the light side
• Gasol now gets some much-needed time off, after his double-championship summer

See, it’s fine! I may not totally agree with Kawhi Leonard’s “82 practices” vibe, but, April-May-June is where the important games are. Yes, the Raptors have been hit with the injury bug a lot this season, but as long they’re healthy in April, that’s the most important thing.