Atlanta Hawks: Are Injury Concerns of Chandler Parsons Behind Him?

A look at how much playing time Chandler Parsons might get in his first year with the Atlanta Hawks.

The Atlanta Hawks traded for Chandler Parsons this offseason with the Memphis Grizzlies in order to open up a single roster spot – as they traded two bad contracts (Solomon Hill and Miles Plumlee) for one bad contract in Parsons.

Parsons burst onto the scene during the 2011-12 season as a member of the Houston Rockets, where he averaged 9.5 points per game, 4.8 rebounds per game, 2.1 assist per game and 1.2 steals per game while playing 28.6 minutes a contest in 63 total games (57 starts), according to Basketball Reference.

Parsons’s strong play in his rookie campaign saw him named to the All-Rookie Second Team.

After that strong rookie season, Parsons strung together four straight double-digit scoring-average seasons with the Houston Rockets for two years and the Dallas Mavericks for two years. Things were going swell, until Parsons began to suffer a rash of injuries during his tenure with the Mavericks.

Parsons struggled through various ailment during his Dallas career such as ankle sprains, knee soreness and, more seriously, chronic knee pain that ended up needed offseason surgery as well as a torn right meniscus in March of 2016.

Despite those injury concerns, Parsons was signed to a mammoth deal by the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2016 offseason, though his luck didn’t change in Memphis, where suffered a partially torn left meniscus in 2017.

After that, Parsons barely played at all over the course of the next few years in Memphis, but seeing as he is on a rebuilding (but scrappy) young squad on the Atlanta Hawks, will the team be able to find minutes for him next season?

Last year, the Hawks played Jeremy Lin considerable minutes in the first half of the season as he was coming back from a serious injury, so perhaps Parsons will be able to get on the court similarly to Lin last year – though Parsons plays a more stacked position than Lin did last year.

Let’s hop that Parsons is able to showcase some of the scoring chops from his previous seasons, but if not, let’s hope he can help these young Atlanta Hawks travail the choppy waters of budding NBA stardom.