{"id":612686,"date":"2026-02-20T01:36:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/612686\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T01:36:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:36:27","slug":"kentavious-caldwell-pope-finger-surgery-out-for-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/612686\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (Finger Surgery) Out For Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veteran wing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope<\/a> will miss the remainder of the 2025\/26 season after undergoing surgery on Thursday to address a misalignment of his right pinky finger, the Grizzlies announced (via Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"The news doesn\u2019t come as a surprise, as Memphis revealed<\/a> on Wednesday that Caldwell-Pope would have the procedure. The shooting guard is expected to make a full recovery before next season begins, per the team.<\/p>\n

Caldwell-Pope, who was acquired from Orlando last summer in the Desmond Bane<\/a> trade, made 51 appearances in \u201925\/26 for the Grizzlies, averaging 8.4 points, 2.7 assists and 2.5 rebounds in 21.3 minutes per game. His shooting line was .410\/.316\/.913.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old was a quality 3-and-D contributor for several years, winning a pair of championships (with the Lakers in 2020 and the Nuggets in 2023) as a key role player. However, his production has fallen off the past seasons, particularly from behind the arc \u2014 he shot 38.9%<\/a> from three-point range in the seven seasons leading up to 2024\/25, but has converted just 33.3%<\/a> of his outside looks since.<\/p>\n

Caldwell-Pope has been remarkably durable throughout his career, never missing more than eight games in a season until now. He holds a $21.6MM player option for \u201926\/27 that he\u2019s essentially a lock to exercise.<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies, who have been hit hard by injuries all season long, will likely only have nine players active for Friday\u2019s game at Utah (Twitter link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Caldwell-Pope, Ja Morant<\/a> (left elbow UCL sprain<\/a>), Santi Aldama<\/a> (right knee injury management), Brandon Clarke<\/a> (right calf strain), Zach Edey<\/a> (left ankle stress reaction), Cedric Coward<\/a> (hyperextended right knee), Ty Jerome<\/a> (right calf injury management) and Scotty Pippen Jr.<\/a> (left great toe injury management) are all out, while rookie guard Walter Clayton<\/a> is doubtful to suit up due to a right calf contusion.<\/p>\n

As Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/a> writes (subscriber link), head coach Tuomas Iisaslo provided injury updates on Coward and Aldama on Wednesday. Neither player was able to practice yesterday, and while Coward is said to be making progress, the prognosis for Aldama \u2014 who missed eight of the team\u2019s last nine games leading up to the All-Star break \u2014 is murky.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to get it to a baseline,\u201d Iisalo said of Aldama\u2019s right knee issue. \u201cWe spent those few games trying to go a little bit back and forth and it flared up every time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran wing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will miss the remainder of the 2025\/26 season after undergoing surgery on Thursday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[7,2710,3522,294,865,293,177,4070,6,1185,627,1201,951,1083],"class_list":{"0":"post-612686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brandon-clarke","10":"tag-cedric-coward","11":"tag-grizzlies","12":"tag-kentavious-caldwell-pope","13":"tag-memphis","14":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","15":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-santi-aldama","18":"tag-scotty-pippen-jr","19":"tag-ty-jerome","20":"tag-walter-clayton","21":"tag-zach-edey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116100398218993579","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612686","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=612686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}