Josh McRoberts has been sidelined again with a stress fracture in his left foot, which makes this the third injury of this type to occur in the past 12 months.
Before this latest injury, McRoberts appeared in 19 straight games for the HEAT, and began to find a rhythm with some nice play as a starter. The unfortunate injury comes on the heels of McRoberts missing training camp with a similar stress reaction and also missing the HEAT’s Eastern Conference Finals series against Toronto last season.
With a similar injury occurring on the same foot for the 3rd time in a year, I asked Coach Spoelstra if this latest stress fracture could threaten his NBA career, and he gave the following response in the audio below:
Spoelstra’s answer was ripe with optimistic coach speak which is expected, but he alluded to the complicated task of getting McRoberts back on the court by mentioning the “complexity” and “putting our minds together” to find a solution. Spoelstra’s facial expressions told the story about how serious this latest injury is, and how challenging it will be to find a solution. Stress fractures ended the careers of players like Bill Walton, Rick Smits, and Yao Ming, so with McRoberts approaching 30, there should be some major concern here.
Spoelstra did end his statement by expressing confidence in finding a solution, but the frequency of McRoberts’s injuries may lead to some difficult decisions concerning his career.