Darius Miller, fresh off his rookie season and one of the young players working to be part of the future in New Orleans, has suffered a big setback.
He had a stress fracture in his foot that needed to be surgically repaired, and he is out for eight to 12 weeks the team announced. That has him back a couple weeks into the regular season at the earliest.
Which is bad news for the forward (he played most of his limited minutes off the bench at the three last season) because the Pelicans have loaded up this summer and are going to spend camp getting to know each other. Most likely Tyreke Evans will start at the three, with Al-Farouq Aminu and Anthony Morrow behind him. Maybe Miller could have worked his way into some minutes at the four behind Ryan Anderson, but it’s will be a lot harder to come in a few weeks into the season when the rotation is set and prove he can do it than it would have been if he had camp.
It is not known exactly how the injury happened, although likely it was in training for the upcoming season.
Miller, who played his college ball at Kentucky with Anthony Davis, is on a minimum deal but it is fully guaranteed for this season.