The backup centre will be sidelined for approximately four weeks
Milwaukee Bucks backup centre Jericho Sims will be out for approximately four weeks after undergoing successful surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right thumb today. Sims’ injury occurred in Saturday’s 126-119 win over the Indiana Pacers. The surgery was performed by Dr. Michelle Carlson at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.
Going the surgical route to repair Sims’ injury was clearly on the table as soon as the game concluded against the Pacers, with Doc Rivers hinting at it in his pregame media availability the following night against the Oklahoma City Thunder:
Doc Rivers says Jericho Sims’ thumb injury is a significant one and surgery is a conversation
— Justin Garcia (@justingarcianba.bsky.social) 2025-03-16T23:21:31.989Z
He did suit up and play 12 minutes last night (no points, four rebounds), so it appeared the initial plan was to play through it. However, they evidently had that conversation and made the decision after the game, flying him out to NYC today for the procedure.
The injury is, of course, another blow to the Bucks’ already depleted big-man depth, with Bobby Portis already sidelined as he serves a 25-game suspension for violating the league’s drug policy. So where does Milwaukee go from here? Well, they recently signed F/C Pete Nance to a two-way contract; Nance is sure to be spending most of his time with the Bucks going forward. However, with Nance only having appeared in 16 NBA games over his young career, the Bucks can sign guys to 10-day contracts once Portis is moved to the suspended list, as our Van Fayaz lays out here:
With Sims not able to suit up likely until round one at the earliest, now’s the time to move
Portis to the suspended list and sign a big to a 10-day deal. A player can be on two 10-days before he would need to be signed the rest of the year. 20 days from now is April 6; Portis can come back April 9.— Van Fayaz (@vanfayaz.bsky.social) 2025-03-17T23:47:43.290Z
The current list of bigs on the free agent market is quite slim. Among players with prior NBA experience, the only centres who have seen minutes this season include former Bucks Liam Robbins, who was waived earlier this month. Then you have 25-year-old Moses Brown, 27-year-old Kylor Kelley, Skal Labissiere, who played four games with the Kings in his first game action since 2020, and former no. 3 overall pick Jahlil Okafor, who saw three minutes in a game with the Pacers after being out of the league since 2021. Among guys who haven’t seen minutes this year due to injury, James Wiseman has a torn Achilles and isn’t an option, but former Buck Christian Wood said yesterday he is cleared to play in a week after knee surgery last March.
In 14 games with Milwaukee, Jericho Sims was averaging 2.4 points and 4.9 rebounds in 15 minutes per contest while shooting 68% from the field. He had been showing some promising ability to switch on defence, along with intriguing passing development.