Brown Out Friday as Philadelphia's Injury List Grows

Jaylen Brown was ruled out for Friday's NBA Cup game against the Knicks with left patellar tendinopathy, going from questionable to doubtful to out over the course of the day. It's a knee issue, and those tend to linger.

The timing is awkward. LeBron James already missed a game last Saturday with sciatica — the same condition that kept him out of the first 14 games of last season — and now Brown, Philadelphia's second guard, is unavailable as well. The depth chart at forward is thin enough without James: Dean Wade is the next man up there, and the drop-off is significant. The guard group handles Brown's absence a little better, with VJ Edgecombe available behind Tyrese Maxey, but Philadelphia is burning through its margin early.

It's only late October, and neither absence is described as long-term. But this is a team that has spent recent years managing its stars' availability as much as deploying them, and the pattern is familiar enough to notice.