MILWAUKEE – Nets power forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson was forced out of Saturday’s game against the Bucks with a right adductor strain, essentially the same injury that sidelined him more than 2 ½ months this summer.
“I definitely don’t want to speculate,” Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said. “We’ll get it looked at [Sunday], and we’ll get a better idea.”
Hollis-Jefferson left after just 2:59 with one rebound, one assist, one foul and one worrisome injury. No update was given on the severity or timeframe given for a return. But considering his history with this injury, it bears watching.
“You know where your groin is, so I knew it was my groin. But I’m no doctor, so I didn’t know “Oh, it’s this severe” or whatever the case may be. I knew it was my groin,” Hollis-Jefferson said. “A little sore. But we’ll go see [Sunday], check and see how it feels, how everything is.”
After Hollis-Jefferson suffered a left adductor strain on Aug. 4 while going up to attempt a dunk in ex-teammate Jeremy Lin’s charity game in China, he not only missed the entire preseason but didn’t play until the fourth game of the regular season on Oct. 24. By then he had lost his starting job to Jared Dudley.
Hollis-Jefferson reassured this injury is less severe.
“Yeah,” he said. “I felt a little strange feeling on a crossover going baseline. It just felt weird to me so I just wanted to be cautious and talk to our training staff, see what was going on.”
Hollis-Jefferson was slow to get back up to full speed from the first adductor injury, consigned to coming off the bench in his first 16 appearances. He didn’t resume his starting role until Nov. 25 against Philadelphia, and has struggled offensively. Coming into Saturday, he’d seen his shooting drop from. 47.2 percent last season to just 40.5.
Atkinson has acknowledged that the initial adductor injury has set Hollis-Jefferson back, and he hasn’t been as effective or explosive in terms of finishing. He’s seen his dunk percentage drop from 96.7 last season to 80 percent, and his finishing at the rim go from 59.7 percent to 54.4.
In Hollis-Jefferson’s absence, little-used Kenneth Faried — who had gotten just 50 minutes all season over nine cameos — had 21 points and 10 rebounds in 27:18 of action.
In Atkinson’s system, Faried is more of a rolling center than a power forward and backup center Ed Davis being rested Saturday opened up minutes for Faried. If Hollis-Jefferson misses extended time, Atkinson could use DeMarre Carroll at power forward as planned in the offseason, or go back to Dudley. But would it give Faried a shot to at least get into the rotation?
“I really don’t know what’s going to happen,” Faried said. “Rondae went down. I’m hoping he’ll be back in three days. I don’t like to see nobody go down. Hopefully he’ll be back [Sunday] if he’s feeling better.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s my teammate or somebody else on another tea, injuries always affect teams and always affect people. So I’m hoping he can bounce back from that and feel recovered. But we’ve got to keep this ship moving, just like when Caris [LeVert] got hurt. We’ve got to figure it out. So whatever coach decides, I’m with it. I’m going to be ready for whatever.”