In a preseason with far more injury reports than we should be seeing, the Oklahoma City Thunder are adding a big one to the pile.
Center Isaiah Hartenstein suffered what the team called a “small, non-displaced fracture in his left hand” that will be re-evaluated in 5-6 weeks, the Thunder announced. The injury occurred during the Thunder’s preseason game against the Nuggets on Tuesday night.
This will have Hartenstein out for at least the first month of the season, likely a few weeks longer into December, meaning he will miss about the team’s first 20 games.
Hartenstein came to the Thunder this offseason on a three-year, $87 million contract. Last season with the Knicks he averaged 7.8 points, 8.3 rebounds and 2.5 assists a game, and was a key part of their late-season run up to the No. 2 seed, then reaching the second round, because of his presence inside and passing skills that allowed him to be the hub of the offense at points.
In OKC, Hartenstein has been a seamless fit at the five in the preseason, both playing next to Chet Holmgren in a two-big lineup and with other lineups as coach Mark Daigneault experiments to see what rotations work. This is a setback in terms of finding what rotations the Thunder want to lean on this season and for depth as the games start to pile up.
However, it shouldn’t slow the Thunder much during the regular season. They will return to more of the five-out lineups with Holmgren at center, which earned the Thunder the No. 1 seed in the West last season. Hartenstein had fit perfectly, adding depth and, more importantly, helping with playoff matchups against teams with traditional centers and size, such as Nikola Jokic in Denver.
Still, it’s a bummer to see one of the greatest free-agent signings in Thunder history go down for the first month or more of the season. The Thunder already had Jaylin Williams (hamstring) and Kenrich Williams (knee) sidelined this preseason.
