Maliq Brown injury update: Jon Scheyer reveals recovery timeline for Duke forward

While he may be out for the foreseeable future, Duke F Maliq Brown will be back at some point this season for the Blue Devils.

That is the update that Jon Scheyer shared on Thursday regarding Brown after dislocating his left shoulder. Their tests on it have them hoping to have him back later on this season but it won’t be in the next few weeks with only five games to go in the regular season.

“I think you can guess what’s coming, too, with my predictable answer here,” Scheyer joked to start his media availability today. “We got some, uh – did all the imaging. Positive news: There’s nothing abnormal, you know, that you aren’t ready to see, you know, with the dislocated shoulder. So, I think we’re optimistic that we can get him back this season. I think the hardest part is a lot of it has to do with his stability, which, right now, he’s pretty sore still. So we have to see how much time that takes. Is it, is it a couple weeks? Is it more? But he’s going to be out. I mean, obviously, he’s not playing, you know, in the next week or so at a minimum.”

Brown dislocated that shoulder earlier this week towards the end of the first half in the 80-62 win for No. 3 Duke at Virginia on Monday. That led to X-rays and an MRI on Tuesday with this news coming as a result of that testing.

This comes after Brown has missed games earlier this season. He missed one game back in December after spraining his toe before he missed four games with a sprained knee over the course of January.

In 21 games off the bench for Duke, Brown is averaging 2.5 points (62.9% FG), 4.1 rebounds, 1.6 assists, and 1.4 steals. That’s with him as a defensive player at one of the forward spots in reserve for the Blue Devils.

Brown plays a specific role in the lineup with Scheyer wanting him back as soon as he’s able. It just may not be until the postseason with there being three weeks until the ACC Tournament and four until the NCAA Tournament.

“I’d say it’s a few weeks but Maliq will do whatever he can to get back on the floor. I’m just – we’re happy, the fact that we didn’t see anything crazy in there, just what you would normally see from a dislocated shoulder,” Scheyer said. “He’ll attack rehab with our medical team and we’ll get him back as soon as we can while still being really smart about not rushing this at all with him. We need him back fully healthy.