Immanuel Quickley

12/21/2024 02:16 PM

Immanuel Quickley's long ordeal with injuries isn't over yet, but the end is in sight. 

The Toronto Raptors point guard has had nothing but bad luck this season. He missed all of training camp and played in just one exhibition game due to a thumb sprain he suffered in September. 

He played just 14 minutes in the season opener in October before falling hard on his lower back and bruising his pelvis, an injury that kept him out for the next eight games and then — in the fourth quarter of his second game back from that injury — Quickley caught his arm trying to fight over a screen against the Los Angeles Lakers on Nov. 10, spraining the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow. 

That mishap has kept him out of the lineup for 17 games and counting. 

But the fifth-year point guard did take the floor with his club for a light practice Saturday and he was a full participant in all elements other than anything involving contact. 

He's not expected to be in the lineup when the Raptors host the Houston Rockets on Sunday or when they travel to New York for Monday's game against the Knicks, his former team, but he is inching closer. 

The final test, he says, will be the ability to throw all the one-handed passes a point guard needs with his left hand, something he's still hasn't tried yet and will be the last measure of his readiness to return to live action.

When will that come? 

"I have no idea," he said. "I would want to feel like I could do everything before I came back." 

In the meantime he's had to balance the emotions that come with disruptions beyond his control. 

"Frustration," he said when asked about his reaction to injuring his elbow almost immediately after returning from his back injury. "I think for anybody, I’m sure, same news that you get in your day-to-day life that you don’t want to get, you know. Everybody gets frustrated, so it’s no different for me. I’m human, just like everybody else, but just trying to figure out a plan to find a way to get better as quick as I can. You know, obviously there’s times where you’re frustrated, but you have to, like I said earlier, just find ways to improve."

Quickley said that being sidelined has given him a new appreciation for the finer points of the game, and he's eager to test out some of his observations. 

"I think when you're not on the floor you can see a lot of the details of the game," he said. "There's just so many things you don't see when you're on the floor that you can see when you're off the floor."

The Raptors promise to get better once Quickley is able to take the court. He would instantly become their best deep shooting threat on a team that's last in the NBA in three-point attempts and would give them another on-ball decision maker to take the pressure from Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett, particularly late in games where the Raptors — losers of six straight and 7-21 on the year — have struggled all season. 

"He’s the type of player that definitely helps, his three-point shooting, his gravity, will create more room for drives," said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic, who has yet to see his preferred starting five on the floor for even one game this season due to a raft of injuries team wide. "His play-making ability, I think it’s something that is under-estimated. He's a good playmaker for us, but he's also a young player that his learning to do all of this, so I’m really, really excited for the moment for him to come back and to build some momentum."