The Boston Celtics continue to pioneer a lead in a new (and unpleasant) category in NBA statistics, with news breaking veteran shooting guard Evan Fournier would be entering the league’s health and safety protocols.
Still fresh off of the false alarm that kept him from joining the team in the first place to debut against the Oklahoma City Thunder on March 27, Fournier will be out an indefinite period, but likely at least a week barring a repeat performance of a false positive. Even before this turn of events, the Celtics stood at 131 days missed by players in the protocol, a commanding 20-day lead in that category.
As noted by NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg, the team has more days lost in the protocols than the 10 lowest-affected clubs do together.
Truly unbelievable how health and safety protocols continues to affect this team.
Celtics were at 131 player-days lost through Sunday. Twenty more than the next closest team. More player-days lost than the 10 lowest impacted teams COMBINED. https://t.co/bRvPvHcOoW
— Chris Forsberg (@ChrisForsberg_) April 6, 2021
Whatever the case may be with Fournier, we hope the absence is as short as possible and it goes as well as it can.
The team will have a weighty task against the Philadelphia 76ers without him, and keeping spirits (and quality play) up against the New York Knicks will be one of the toughest gut-checks of the Celtics’ season to date.
This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!
