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A knee injury will keep New Orleans Pelicans guard Tyreke Evans on the sidelines at the start of the 2016-17 season.

Continue for updates.

Evans Targeting December Return

Saturday, Sept. 24

Although we know Evans will not be ready to play at the start of the season, he is planning on returning to action within the first couple of months of the year.

The guard explained his plan Saturday, per Jim Eichenhofer of NBA.com:

I’m trying to push for December, maybe the middle of December, to see how I’m feeling. Right now I’m just putting up shots, rehabbing, trying to get the strength back in my quads. My knee actually feels pretty good, and I’m not feeling the pain I was before, which is a good thing. We’ll see how I feel when I start running up and down (and playing fullcourt basketball).

Spending time on the recovery trail is nothing new for Evans. Over his first seven seasons in the league—four of them with the Sacramento Kings before he joined the Pelicans in 2013-14—Evans missed at least 15 games four times.

Last season, he appeared in just 25 games due to knee problems that forced him to undergo season-ending surgery in February.

But before his season ended prematurely, Evans was struggling under head coach Alvin Gentry, per NOLA.com's John Reid:

New Orleans ranked 11th in the NBA with a 98.9 pace rating. But when Evans was in the game, the Pelicans' pace rating dropped to 95.4. Evans also made only 43.3 percent of his shots from the field, his lowest field-goal percentage since joining the Pelicans in 2013. He appeared to have trouble adapting to Gentry's system that involves around ball movement, spacing and getting shots up quickly in the shot clock.

More missed time will only hurt his continued development with the organization. On the other hand, rookie Buddy Hield now has a golden opportunity to make his mark as a starter in the league.

Hield was college basketball's most explosive scorer with Oklahoma, averaging over 25 points per game as one of the nation's top three-point shooters.

If the rookie is able to excel during this audition, then Evans might return to the lineup without his starting job.

Read more New Orleans Pelicans news on BleacherReport.com



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