The New Orleans Pelicans may be the team in the NBA that has been hurt the most by the injury bug this season. Countless key players on the Pelicans have missed significant time due to injuries and now it looks like they may have to add another player to the season-ending injury list. Tyreke Evans is expected to undergo surgery on his right knee and may have to miss the rest of the season, according to Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports.
Before the season began Evans had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee which caused him to miss the first couple of months of the season. Recently Evans had been experiencing soreness and new pain in the knee, which caused him to miss the last seven games, and now he plans to have another surgery on the same knee. Evans will reportedly be visiting with specialists this week to finalize the details of the procedure.
The plan wasn't always to get surgery for Evans as he was expected to rehab the injury until after the All-Star break. Now though, with the Pelicans basically out of the playoff race and the knee not getting any better Evans decided surgery was the right path to take. An official timetable won't be available until after the surgery but it is expected that Evans won't play again this season.
If Evans is in fact done for the season he will have only appeared in 25 games this year. Evans did play well in those 25 games though as he averaged 15.2 points, 5.2 rebounds and 6.6 assists while making 39 percent of his threes. The Pelicans were looking to potentially trade Evans at the deadline, according to Ken Berger of CBS Sports, but now that seems very unlikely. Evans does still have one more year left on his contract so a trade is still a possibility but his value is significantly lowered now due to the injury so a trade wouldn't make much sense for the Pelicans.
If Evans does get the surgery he will join Quincy Pondexter as Pelicans that have had season-ending surgeries on their knees. To add on to that key players like Eric Gordon, Norris Cole and Jrue Holiday have all been severely limited this year due to injuries which is a huge reason for the Pelicans being a big disappointment this season.
