Hoping to challenge the Cavaliers for the No. 1 seed in the East, the Toronto Raptors received a setback on Sunday with the announcement that Jared Sullinger will need surgery on his left foot. Sullinger injured his foot in Toronto's preseason game against the Warriors when someone stepped on it, and hasn't played since. He'll undergo surgery Monday and will likely miss several weeks of action.
The Raptors say that Sullinger will have a screw inserted into his fifth metatarsal as "a preventative measure to alleviate symptomatic stress reactions." How much time he will actually miss remains to be seen -- the Raptors haven't given a timetable -- but he missed 24 games with a stress fracture on the same foot in 2014-2015.
Sullinger was expected to be the Raptors starting power forward and play center in small ball lineups. The Raptors will likely turn to Patrick Patterson while Sullinger is out. Lucas Nogueira and rookie Pascal Siakim will also get an opportunity in the light of Sullinger's injury. Toronto isn't terribly deep at power forward but it has enough to at least fill in for Sullinger while he recovers from his surgery.
However if Sullinger ends up missing months of action, Toronto's goal of trying to get the No. 1 seed in the East may become even less achievable.
