By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
William Howard will be sidelined for the next three weeks with a knee injury, LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne announced.
Howard, 28, has averaged 7.3 points, 3.7 rebounds, 1.2 steals, and 0.6 assists per contest over 16 appearances in the 2021-22 edition of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague. Domestically, he is up to 9.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, 2.1 assists, and 1.0 steals per Betclic Elite LNB Pro A game.
Back in the 2019-20 season, Howard appeared in two NBA games as a two-way player of the Houston Rockets.
The latest injury setback for the team coached by T.J. Parker comes in ahead of EuroLeague Regular Season Round 22 fixture opposite Crvena Zvezda mts set to be played tonight, Thursday (21:00 CET). David Lighty (hand), Victor Wembanyama (shoulder), and Raymar Morgan (back) will be sidelined as well.
The French team dropped six out of the last seven games falling to 8-11 in Europe’s premier club continental competition. The current W-L tally falls one win short of the top eight spots corresponding to the Playoffs seeds. Besides plenty of games remaining to make up lost ground, all injured players are expected to return to action within the next weeks.
As for the Crvena Zvezda currently sitting at 7-11 in the EuroLeague table, the team based in Belgrade remained idle through the last three weeks due to a spike in positive COVID-19 cases. Dejan Davidovac, Ognjen Dobric, Austin Hollins, Nikola Kalinic, Branko Lazic, Stefan Markovic, Luka Mitrovic, Marko Simonovic, Nate Wolters, and Maik Zirbes were affected but all recovered.