{"id":610891,"date":"2026-02-19T03:34:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T03:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/610891\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T03:34:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T03:34:42","slug":"kentavious-caldwell-pope-to-undergo-surgery-to-fix-upper-body-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/610891\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to undergo surgery to fix upper-body injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/memphis-grizzlies\/grizzlies-news-cedric-coward-defends-ja-morant-fires-back-at-his-critics\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Memphis Grizzlies are now leaning fully into punting<\/a> on the 2025-26 season, if recent injury developments following the trade deadline are any indication. Ja Morant&#8217;s status is already up in the air amid his battle with a UCL sprain, and now, his backcourt mate, <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/players\/c52f0a6a\/kentavious-caldwell-pope\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kentavious Caldwell-Pope<\/a>, will be <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BrettSiegelNBA\/status\/2024317526151147678\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">undergoing surgery<\/a> to address a \u201cmisalignment of his right pinky finger\u201d, according to ClutchPoints NBA insider Brett Siegel.<\/p>\n<p>The Grizzlies are currently in 11th place in the West, which theoretically puts them in the running for a play-in tournament spot. But they seem to have no interest in vying for a postseason spot, especially after trading away Jaren Jackson Jr. to the Utah Jazz prior to the deadline.<\/p>\n<p>This at least gives the Grizzlies&#8217; remaining veterans time and space to recover from any knocks, which is precisely what Caldwell-Pope is doing. The team is in the business of trying to compete for improved lottery odds, which means that they will be prioritizing the youth moving forward.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/memphis-grizzlies\/grizzlies-gauging-interest-5-assets-2026-nba-trade-deadline-looms\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Caldwell-Pope was acquired by the Grizzlies<\/a> this past offseason in the Desmond Bane trade. He&#8217;s played in 51 of the Grizzlies&#8217; 53 games this season thus far, averaging 8.4 points per game on 41\/32\/91 shooting splits.<\/p>\n<p>Grizzlies lean on youth amid Kentavious Caldwell-Pope&#8217;s injury<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3594948\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_0305.jpeg\" alt=\"Memphis Grizzlies guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (3) brings the ball up the court during the second half against the Charlotte Hornets at First Horizon Coliseum.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\"  \/>Brian Westerholt-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>Caldwell-Pope, on paper, could have been a solid stopgap addition for the Grizzlies as they tried to remain semi-competitive in the aftermath of the Bane trade. But disaster has struck from every direction for the Grizzlies, amid Morant&#8217;s injuries and underperformance, as well as injuries to key players such as Ty Jerome, Scotty Pippen Jr., and Zach Edey, that Memphis didn&#8217;t stand much of a chance.<\/p>\n<p>Caldwell-Pope, nonetheless, is guaranteed to stick in Memphis for next season. He has a player option <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spotrac.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/13321\/kentavious-caldwell-pope\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">worth $21.6 million<\/a> for the 2026-27 season, and that is the kind of money that in no universe he&#8217;d be declining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Memphis Grizzlies are now leaning fully into punting on the 2025-26 season, if recent injury developments following&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3795],"tags":[7,294,865,293,177,4070,6,14502],"class_list":{"0":"post-610891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-grizzlies","10":"tag-kentavious-caldwell-pope","11":"tag-memphis","12":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","13":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nba-injury"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116095201489016858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}