Tennessee basketball received a major injury blow on Monday morning when center JP Estrella announced that he’s having season-ending left foot surgery.
Estrella is Tennessee’s backup center and was averaging 4.7 points and 2.7 rebounds in 10.3 minutes in the first three games of the season. The sophomore is one of just two true centers on Tennessee’s roster and without him, the Vols are thin behind Felix Okpara.
“We’ll miss him,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said of Estrella on Tuesday. “With that said, it gives the opportunity to some other guys. We lose a little bit of the frontline bulk that we feel like we needed, but we’ve got what we’ve got and we’ve got to make it work.”
The most obvious person who will see his role increase is sophomore power forward Cade Phillips. A 6-foot-9, 212-pound big man, Phillips is off to a really nice start to the season averaging 6.8 points and 4.3 rebounds in 16.7 minutes per game.
Phillips is more of a four-man but is capable of playing well at center as he already has at this point in the season. There will likely be some matchups that Phillips struggles at the five due to his size, but most night he is more than capable of playing physical enough.
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“Cade’s just getting started as a player,” Barnes said. “The more he’s out there the better he’s gonna get, the more relaxed he’s gonna get. You’ll see him start to improve on offense. … Cade is a lot stronger than he looks. He’s very athletic. I think that what he does, the way he attacks the weight room and all that, but he’s stronger than he looks.”
Phillips is the most obvious answer but Tennessee has other options to turn to behind Okpara with Estrella out. Charlotte transfer Igor Milicic Jr. played minutes at the five-spot in the Bahamas. Milicic is 6-foot-10 so he has the literal size to play center but he’s not as physical and is more of a perimeter player.
But that’s also the exciting thing about playing Milicic at the five-spot. It can create matchup nightmares for other teams to try and defend him and Tennessee’s offense on the other end of the court.
“When he’s there at the five, he obviously creates a different look for us on the offensive end where he can definitely pull those guys away for the basket,” Barnes said. “The more that we can put a team out there like that, that goes to the versatility of our team right now. We feel like we do have versatility and we can play multiple ways.”
The key to that versatility and being able to play Milicic at the five-spot are guys like Jahmai Mashack and Darlinstone Dubar. Maskack is a 6-foot-4 wing and Dubar is a 6-foot-6 forward. Both are strong players that can thrive playing the four-spot and even steal a few minutes the five spot if needed in a pinch.
Tennessee is back in action on Wednesday evening when they face UT-Martin in Knoxville. Tipoff is at 4 p.m. ET on the SEC Network+.
