Poor Arnett. After the Sixers traded a future first in the 2011 draft to nab the Mississippi State forward from the Heat, he was bench-ridden nearly his entire rookie season with a combination of ankle injuries and Cranky Doug Collins. This year, though, he was finally going to get his shot for big minutes on the vet-depleted Sixers--some starting lineup projections even had him sharing a frontcourt with Thaddeus Young and Spencer Hawes--and a chance to prove he wasn't a huge waste of assets for this team.
Well, he still might get his chance, but it won't be until 2014 at the earliest. The Sixers reported this morning that the second-year forward recently underwent ankle surgery, which will knock him out of commission for the rest of the calendar year at the least. (Kwame's also out for a minute with a hamstring strain, if you care about that sort of thing.)
The '13-'14 Sixers weren't going to win games with or without Arnett, and in reality, this doesn't change all that much for the team. Still, it's not exactly like the Sixers had a ton of frontcourt depth to begin with, and now without Arnett or Kwame (and Nerlens Noel still recovering from ACL surgery), all we have to start the season is Thad, Spence, Lavoy Allen (who Brett Brown also recently listed as having a "minor injury" of some sort), and whichever of Royce White and Tim Ohlbrecht end up making the squad. Not a lot to work with there.
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Of course, the injury is more of a bummer for Sixers fans because it means we'll have to wait even longer to figure out if Moultrie is any good or not. The chances of Arnett playing a big part in the Sixers roster of the future were not great, but he did show flashes of potential and competence at the end of last year, and it would have been nice to get to see him getting the minutes to prove those weren't a small-sample-size fluke.
Oh well. Hopefully we'll finally get to see the Moultron Bomb detonate sometime in February or March. In the meantime...
Potential participants in the Sixers Walk-On reality show, airing on CSN Tuesdays at 8: Bo Kimble, Reno Mahe, Ozzie Canseco, among others.
— WIBR (@wheresbenrivera) September 27, 2013