When news dropped this past week that Bruce Brown Jr. was undergoing knee surgery and would be reevaluated in three weeks, there was a rush of negative emotions: frustration at another injury holding back the Toronto Raptors, bewilderment that the Raptors picked up his team option despite this injury, and despair that Brown will ever be traded.
Setting aside the transactional elements, however, Brown's injury absence does have a silver lining: there is playing time to be passed around the roster. Which players will get more time on the court because of Brown's injury?
Let's look at three players who can expect their minute totals to go up when the regular season begins.
No. 1: Gradey Dick
If Bruce Brown were healthy heading into the season, he had a reasonable shot at winning the starting shooting guard spot. His main competition for the job was rising sophomore wing Gradey Dick.
Now Dick is almost a lock to begin the season in the starting lineup, and he may never relinquish it. The Raptors need his shooting to help space the court; if he can bring decent defense and tertiary shot creation, that's all the better.
The Raptors could hand Dick a lot of minutes to start the season if he can play at both the 2 and the 3, and without Brown there aren't a lot of proven options to take his place. That leaves plenty of playing time for rising players like Dick.
No. 2: Ochai Agbaji
While Gradey Dick is the clearest beneficiary in terms of playing time from BruceBrowns's absence, the player who is likely to see the largest shift in role is Ochai Agbaji. He may go from not factoring into the regular rotation at all to being a nightly participant.
Agbaji has not met the potential he showed his final season at Kansas, and his two-way play upon arriving in Toronto at the Trade Deadline was truly horrid. He shot just 39.1 percent from the field and a ghastly 21.7 percent from 3-point range in 27 games last season.
If the third-year wing brought enough in other areas he could make a case for patience for the shot to come around, but he's been a below-average defender and a mediocre rebounder and overall offensive player. There isn't much to recommend him at this point.
This could be the last burst of consistent playing time that Agbaji receives in the NBA. It probably comes down to the shot for him; he needs a hot streak to show he can be a weapon from the perimeter and earn himself a longer look. The more time Brown is out, the longer Agbaji's final audition is.
No. 3: Davion Mitchell
It's possible that the injury to Bruce Brown leads to minutes early in the season for rookies Ja'Kobe Walter or Jonathan Mogbo, or perhaps even the little-used D.J. Carton.
If the Raptors want to replace Brown’s defensive impact and ball-handling, however, it's more likely that they look to the newly-acquired Davion Mitchell.
The former Sacramento Kings guard nicknamed “Off-Night” for his lockdown defense, Mitchell's normal role is not perfectly clear. Is he merely the backup point guard to Immanuel Quickley? Are the two going to share the court at times? Or could rookie Jamal Shead beat Mitchell out in training camp?
Mitchell is on the Raptors and not the Kings because he couldn't earn a long-term role with Sacramento and was replaced, first in the rotation by 3-and-D wing Keon Ellis and then in the draft this June by Devin Carter.
Now Mitchell gets a second chance in Toronto, and Brown’s injury may open up opportunities to play next to Quickley and prove his versatility. He needs to hit shots and defend his butt off to fend off Shead and earn the largest role moving further.
Bruce Brown will hopefully not be out for very long, but while he is on the shelf a number of players will have a chance to prove their worth to the team.