12:38PM Saturday
March 9, 2013

Marcin Gortat, one of the few reliable players on the Suns night in and night out this season (and a guy whose role has shrunk as they try to develop young players) could be done for the year.

The Suns announced that Gortat has a sprained foot and would be out three to four weeks.

But this tweet from Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic made it sound worse.

A dejected Marcin Gortat will have sprained foot in a cast for 3 weeks and doubts that he will play again for the #Suns this season.— Paul Coro (@paulcoro) March 07, 2013

The injury happened in the first half of the Suns loss to the Raptors Wednesday.

Gortat was shopped around at the deadline but there were no takers. Which is a bit of a surprise because the Polish Hammer is a solid, traditional center - 11.1 points a game, has grabbed 24.4 percent of the Suns defensive rebounds when on the floor this season - that a few playoff teams could have used.

I'd say this really hurts the Suns chances, but frankly it probably helps their chances of getting more Ping Pong balls in the lottery.