The injury news keeps getting worse for Tiago Splitter.
The Hawks reserve center will miss a minimum of six weeks after an MRI exam revealed a Grade 2 right calf strain. The injury was confirmed after the test was performed at the Emory Orthopaedics and Spine Center.
The latest injury is related to both the hip surgery that preceded a right hamstring strain that has kept Splitter out all season.
According to the Hawks, an update will be provided when appropriate.
Splitter’s first season with the Hawks ended after just 36 games last year when he underwent hip surgery on Feb. 25. He had averaged 5.6 points and 3.3 rebounds in 16.1 minutes.
Splitter came to training camp before this season and the team was intent on bringing him along slowly. He missed the first three exhibition games during the preseason due to the hamstring strain, which was injured in a practice. The original diagnosis called for Splitter to miss a minimum of four weeks that would put him out until mid-November. However, he had yet to return to contact workouts and the team released the latest injury update Friday before the Hawks played at the Jazz.
Splitter, 31, is in the final year of his contract that will pay him $8.5 million this season.
“There is nobody more disappointed than me,” Splitter told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution following the hamstring injury. “I’m tough. I’m tough. Maybe the first day I was sad but the next day I’m already positive and thinking about positive progress each day. That is the mindset you have to have when you are injured.”
Splitter played in 52 games with the Spurs before he was traded to the Hawks in July 2015 after being limited by back and calf injuries. Splitter appeared in 81 games for the Spurs in the 2012-13 season but hasn’t appeared in more than 60 games in any other of his five NBA seasons.
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