The Atlanta Hawks are off to a 1-1 start to their season and they bounced back nicely on Thursday night after a loss to the Detroit Pistons on opening night. Atlanta came into the season relatively healthy with both Kyle Korver and Thabo Sefolosha recovering from injuries but able to play. The Hawks did suffer an injury to a rotation player already though and that is Mike Muscala. Muscala injured his ankle in the season opener and is reportedly expected to miss several games, according to KL Chouinard of NBA.com.
Muscala did not play in the Hawks win over the Knicks on Thursday night and he is expected to be out at least through the weekend. Head coach Mike Budenholzer said that they will hold him out for a couple of days and then re-evaluate him within the next week to see if they can get him back on the court. Muscala reportedly couldn't put any weight on his ankle a couple of days ago so he may miss more than this weekend but that depends on his recovery.
In the first game of the season Muscala seemed to be the Hawks backup power forward behind Paul Millsap as he played more minutes than Mike Scott. Still though, Muscala only played eight minutes in the game and was largely a non-factor in his short time on the court as he only grabbed one rebound. While he is out Scott will take the minutes as he did on Thursday night (11 minutes) and if he performs well he may be able to take the backup spot from Muscala.
Muscala was a second round pick in the 2013 NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks out of Bucknell University and was signed by the Hawks as a free agent in February of 2014. Since signing with the Hawks the 24 year old has gone back and forth to the D-League five different times.
Last season Muscala carved out a nice role for himself in the 40 games he played in as he averaged 14.1 points and 12.1 rebounds per 36 minutes. Muscala only played 12.6 minutes per game but he was a nice player off the bench last season and could still be very useful for this Hawks team. The 6 foot-11 power forward also shot 41 percent from three a year ago so, although he won't have a big role this season, the Hawks would like him back as soon as possible to continue his development.
