TJ Warren Injury: Updates on Suns Star's Foot and Recovery

Joe PantornoFeb 2, 2016

Phoenix Suns forward T.J. Warren's season is over after suffering a foot injury that required surgery.

Continue for updates.

Warren Comments on Surgery

Tuesday, Feb. 16

Warren provided an update on his recovery:

Warren Won't Return in 2015-16 Season

Tuesday, Feb. 2

Adrian Wojnarowski of the Vertical reported on Tuesday that Warren will miss the remainder of the 2015-16 season due to a broken foot.

Challenging Season Gets Worse for Suns

The 22-year-old was averaging 11.0 points per game coming off of the bench in his second year in the league.

The nightmare season continues for the Suns, who fired head coach Jeff Hornacek on Monday after a 14-35 start.

Warren has been a pleasant surprise on the struggling team as he's the Suns' third-leading scorer. Yet even he was struggling at times under Hornacek's system as shown by Yahoo's Michael Gallagher:

However his offensive game was coming along nicely. At 6'8", Warren brings a pretty strong game down low and a decent mid-range game as well. For a Suns offense that's ranked 18th in the league by scoring a little over 100 points per game, Warren's output has been invaluable for them.

Which was why, according to Gallagher, the Suns were tinkering with him at shooting guard recently. With Eric Bledsoe already gone for the season, Phoenix brought in Warren to add some diversity at the position along with youngsters Devin Booker and Archie Goodwin.

Now with him gone, Gallagher expects Jordan McRae and Sonny Weems to see a bump in their minutes. McRae was recently called up from the D-League where he set a record with 61 points in a single game, which earned him a 10-day contract.

If he's able to come in and provide a lift to the Suns' offense, then he could be extending his stay in the NBA a little while longer.

At Warren's normal small forward position, P.J. Tucker will continue to be the starter where Weems can be slotted in as his backup.

The scoring load though is most likely going to fall on point guard Brandon Knight, who is putting up 19.7 points per game this year. It'll not only be his responsibility to run the offense like most point guards do, but he must stay aggressive as the team's best available scoring option.

This is hardly the situation interim head coach Earl Watson would like. On a team that looks destined for the draft lottery and without some of his best available scorers, Watson has his work cut out for him to produce a decent product in Phoenix.

Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com