Philadelphia 76ers: Boban Marjanovic avoided a major injury

After going down with an ugly knee injury against the Pelicans, Philadelphia 76ers center Boban Marjanovic fortunately avoided a season-ending injury.

Philadelphia 76ers fans can breathe a sigh of relief: Boban Marjanovic didn’t suffer a season-ending injury in the team’s 111-110 win over the New Orleans Pelicans.

That’s right, after hitting the ground hard in a pileup in the Pelicans’ paint during the waning moments of the fourth quarter, it looks like Marjanovic will suit up for the Sixers again, maybe sooner than anyone would have imagined.

According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, Marjanovic has been diagnosed with a mild sprain and bone bruise in his right knee and will be re-evaluated in 5-7 days.

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In layman’s terms, that means Boban won’t miss the remainder of the season but will be out for at least the next week, maybe a bit longer.

This obviously isn’t great news, as the 76ers are also going to be without Joel Embiid for at least another game, but in the grander scheme of things, it could have been a whole lot worse.

Is Marjanovic limited in what he can do as a player? Most definitely, as he just can’t hang with the more athletic centers in the league, but over his first seven games in a red, white, and blue uniform, Boban has established himself as a more than solid foil to Embiid in the paint, a Serbian bull in a china shop capable of delving out punishment for about 20 minutes a night.

While it will undoubtedly be interesting to see what Brett Brown cooks up at the five spot in Oklahoma City on Thursday night, as he will only have Jonah Bolden, Amir Johnson, and maybe Justin Patton available to play, dropping one game to a tough out is a whole lot more palatable than having to redesign the team’s entire rotation moving forward.

After that though, Embiid should be back in action when the Sixers start their March slate of games against the Golden State Warriors at the Wells Fargo Center, a game that could now be an absolute blowout if JoJo isn’t at 100 percent.

However, in the grand scheme of things, these two games mean very little to the Philadelphia 76ers’ 2019 aspirations and should be considered collateral damage when compared to a season-ending injury for Boban Marjanovic. While his presence will certainly be missed on the court over the forthcoming days, the team will at least have him back well before the playoffs begin and will be able to further iron out their rotations before the proverbial live bullets start to fly.