Kind of out of nowhere, but the Charlotte Hornets announced that wing Brandon Miller will be out indefinitely after undergoing surgery to improve his shoulder stability.

The team did not elaborate what exactly “shoulder instability” entailed. My Internet research says it usually involves some sort of cleanup or repairs to the labrum, but other ligaments could be involved depending on the nature of the injury. Considering Miller’s injury was manageable enough that he was able to play almost an entire season with it, I assume the surgery isn’t going to be some massive operation. If it’s a minimally invasive procedure, he should be back on the floor within a few months and should hopefully be ready for the open of camp at the beginning of October.

Miller suffered the injury in the second game of the season after awkwardly reaching to make a defensive play. He was diagnosed with a shoulder subluxation, which is essentially a partial dislocation. After a couple of weeks to I assume allow swelling and pain to subside, Miller returned to action with heavy wraps around that shoulder. He played with those wraps all season. Oftentimes joint dislocations significantly increase the risk for future dislocations, especially in the shoulder. This surgery is an attempt to lower that risk.

Miller is coming off the best season of his career in which he averaged 20.2 points and won Eastern Conference Player of the Week in late January/early February. It’s disappointing that he’ll spend another offseason rehabbing instead of solely focusing on adding strength and improving his game, but it is what it is. He at least will be able to keep his conditioning up since it’s an upper body injury and hopefully add some mass to his lower body in the meantime. And it’s also his non-dominant shoulder, so it hopefully shouldn’t be too long before he’s able to start getting shots up again.