DeMar DeRozan Ruled Out Wednesday With Back Injury

DeMar DeRozan is officially out for Wednesday night's matchup against the Toronto Raptors with a back injury, according to Underdog NBA.

Back injuries for NBA veterans are basically the equivalent of a check engine light on a 2012 Honda Civic. You might not know exactly what is wrong, but you definitely know you are not taking it on a road trip anytime soon.

The timing is less than ideal for a Denver Nuggets squad currently sitting at a perfectly mediocre 3-3, which is only good enough for 10th place in a crowded Western Conference. They just dropped a 118-110 game to the Trail Blazers on Monday.

DeRozan managed nine points in the first half of that Portland loss before the wheels fell off. Now, Denver has to figure out how to replace his nightly midrange clinic against his former team.

This is the exact type of late-afternoon injury update that sends fantasy managers scrambling to the waiver wire and forces oddsmakers to aggressively tweak their game lines. Someone on the Nuggets' bench is about to get a massive bump in usage.

Denver tips off against Toronto at 9:00 PM ET. We will soon find out if the Nuggets can tread water without their veteran wing, or if this back issue is going to linger long enough to become a real problem for their early-season rotation.