{"id":649777,"date":"2026-03-10T00:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T00:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/649777\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T00:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T00:07:13","slug":"bucks-injury-report-taurean-prince-upgraded-to-questionable-nearing-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/649777\/","title":{"rendered":"Bucks Injury Report: Taurean Prince upgraded to questionable, nearing return"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a surprise inclusion on the Bucks\u2019 initial injury report ahead of tomorrow night\u2019s matchup with the Suns: forward Taurean Prince is questionable to play. Prince has missed the last four months after appearing in Milwaukee\u2019s first eight contests off the bench. That\u2019s 55 games in total.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll recall that TP, a major fixture of last year\u2019s starting lineup, underwent neck surgery on November 13th. He\u2019s seen zero action since their loss to Toronto on November 4th, after which he was listed as out with a neck strain. From what it sounded like in Doc Rivers press conferences, they thought it was serious, and sure enough, it turned out to be a herniated disc. A few weeks post-operation, the soon-to-be 32-year-old vowed that he\u2019d play again.<\/p>\n

In December, the Bucks reportedly applied for a disabled player exception<\/a> in light of Prince\u2019s surgery, indicating they believed he could be done for the season. For the exception to be granted, an NBA-designated physician must determine that the player is \u201csubstantially more likely than not\u201d to be out through at least June 15th of any league year. Now, most of these exceptions\u2014if approved\u2014are never used because they do not grant teams an additional standard roster spot. They only allow teams to sign a replacement player for the lesser of 50% of the injured player\u2019s salary or the non-taxpayer\u2019s mid-level exception. The latter is $14.1m, and given Prince\u2019s $3.6m salary, Milwaukee\u2019s exception would have been worth only $1.8m, only about $600k more than the rookie minimum salary.<\/p>\n

Since they applied, there\u2019s been no word on whether their request was approved or denied, but we can close the book on it now. Perhaps a physician determined that Prince could play again this season, which may prove correct very soon. TP\u2019s done on-court work at practices and before games for a while now, though there had been no rehab assignment to the G League or any indication he was getting close. For a Bucks team that isn\u2019t as starved for wing depth as they were to begin the year, he\u2019s still a welcome body who maybe defends a little, but definitely shoots. On 4.2 attempts per game, he shot 43.9% from three last year, good for third-best leaguewide.<\/p>\n

Prince is in the first year of a two-year, veteran\u2019s minimum contract, with a $3.8m player option for 2026\u201327. He\u2019ll certainly face a minute restriction, and the Bucks\u2019 19 remaining games may not give him much chance to reestablish enough value for a trip to the open market, so he may opt in once that decision is due in late June. On the other hand, his projected minimum salary for next year is $3.9m\u2014an $85k raise\u2014and all 30 teams can pay him that money with the minimum salary exception. Despite the long injury layoff, he still seems likely to find a minimum deal somewhere if he chooses to leave, given the recent shooting prowess.<\/p>\n

Regardless, congrats to Prince for completing his rehab and seeing an NBA floor again before the season is out. Neck injuries, especially when a disk is involved, have curtailed many careers\u2014just ask Marques Johnson. I doubt TP displaces Ousmane Dieng or Kyle Kuzma from the starting lineup or rotation, but Milwaukee will at least now have the size to avoid playing guards like AJ Green out of position as often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a surprise inclusion on the Bucks\u2019 initial injury report ahead of tomorrow night\u2019s matchup with the Suns:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,103,1845,102,121,3871,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-649777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-bucks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks","10":"tag-bucks-injury-report","11":"tag-milwaukee","12":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","13":"tag-milwaukeebucks","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116201969728047901","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649777","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=649777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}