The moment Nurkic hit the ground I knew something wasn’t right. When I peered over to the right and saw Jared Dudley instantly speed walk over to his bench, I became worried. As an NBA fan, you hate to see any player go down with an injury, but for Nurkic, it was a rather emotional moment because he was in shock.
Nurkic was having a career year (15.6 PPG, 10.4 RPG, 3.2 APG), and you can only hope that his recovery is speedy, and he gets back. Diagnosed with a compound fracture in his left leg that’ll require surgery, he leaves the fourth-seeded Trail Blazers to contend without him.
I was asked last night “How important is Nurkic to the Blazers?
It’s expected that when a player goes down with a gruesome injury that the whole arena is silent, but watch Coach Atkinson. His facial expression is blank. It looks like he could break out in tears at any moment, as he slowly paced from the press box to the bench. Everyone who knows Nurkic knows how hard he’s worked to get to where he is. He just signed a four-year $48 million deal with Portland; instilling a lot of trust in the big man.
Moving forward, the Blazers have themselves in a pickle with Nurkic out of action. Sitting fourth in the West and potentially playing the Utah Jazz is scary. Losing Nurkic means that Portland will take a hit down low and on defense protecting the rim (leads the team in rebounds and blocks 1.4).
Do the Blazers have enough to contend?
This season, the Blazers have made great strides and have a solid roster. Picking up Kanter before the deadline was smart because he’s capable of giving you the same numbers as Nurkic. Besides getting offense from McCollum and Lillard, Seth Curry and Rodney Hood can provide valuable minutes off the bench. Curry shoots a strong 44% from 3PT and gets after it on the defensive end, as we saw last night; getting that clutch steal off of D-Lo. Nevertheless, this team can put the ball in the basket and are top-five in many categories offensively and defensively. Coach Atkinson has structured and disciplined this team into a different beast from previous years.
We’ve seen a lot of NBA players go down with severe injuries recently, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. This season alone we’ve seen Caris LeVert, Victor Oladipo, and now Jusuf Nurkic all go down with gruesome injuries. What did they all have in common? They were all having career years and playing at the highest level possible. I know I’ve been an advocate for players not resting, but an 82-game season can do damage to your body. The NBA needs to reconsider the rest rule, but it might just continue to be a debate that no conclusion comes out of.