ATLANTA (AP) — The Atlanta Hawks have lost All-Star point guard Trae Young for at least four weeks with a torn ligament in his left pinkie finger.
The Hawks announced the injury Sunday. Young was hurt during Friday night’s loss to Toronto and will have surgery Tuesday at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.
The team said Young will be evaluated in four weeks.
“You feel awful for Trae more than anything,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. “It is going to be a challenge for him not to be out there.”
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The loss of Young comes as the Hawks, fighting for the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference, are facing front-line depth issues as center Onyeka Okongwu recovers from a sprained left toe. Snyder said Thursday that Okongwu is not going to be available for the foreseeable future.
“You have to adapt,” Snyder said. “That happened when we lost Jalen (Johnson). We have to have minutes from Kobe (Bufkin) and Patty (Mills) and we obviously know what (Dejounte Murray) can do. I don’t want to wallow in anything.”
The Hawks entered Sunday 2-3 in games Young has missed this season.
Young, who made his third All-Star team this year, leads Atlanta with his averages of 26.4 points and 10.8 assists per game. Murray likely will assume primary ball-handling duties with Young sidelined, and Bogdan Bogdanovic took Young’s spot in the starting lineup for Sunday night’s game against Orlando. In 46 games as a reserve, Bogdanovic is averaging 16.8 points.
“This will be fluid. If Boji starts, we lose his punch off the bench,” Snyder said. “Do you want him stabilizing the second unit? There’s a lot of things that go into it. We will approach it that way.”
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