Jusuf Nurkic out for 2 weeks with fracture in leg
Jusuf Nurkic will miss time with injury after having a phenomenal bounce-back couple of weeks with the Portland Trail Blazers.
Jusuf Nurkic is one of the NBA’s bright young big men. Since being traded to the Portland Trail Blazers, he’s exploded into one of their key pieces scoring 15 points a game, pulling down 10 rebounds, and averaging a career high in assists.
It wasn’t always like this. When Nurkic was in Denver he looked like a player trapped in a place he didn’t want to be. He became a black hole on the offensive end, his defense was poor, and he made comments that showed his unhappiness. The two sides are better now that they’ve parted ways.
Since trading for Nurkic, the Blazers are 14-6 and have all but secured the 8-seed in the Western Conference. He revitalized what looked like a dead team and has provided more than Mason Plumlee was ever able to in Portland. Unfortunately, Rip City is going to have to go back to playing without him for a little while. Nurkic will miss two weeks with a fracture in his right leg.
An MRI shows Jusuf Nurkic has a non-displaced right leg fibular fracture. Will be sidelined for 2 weeks, will be reevaluated.
— Trail Blazers PR (@TrailBlazersPR) April 1, 2017
The word fracture is never comforting, especially in a big man’s leg. Luckily Nurkic will only be missing two weeks though, so at the moment it doesn’t appear to be that severe. That said, it’s strange that this injury is popping up now, because Nurkic has looked perfectly healthy the last few games.
He just finished scoring 19 and 11 on Houston right after dropping a career-high 33 on his former team. Perhaps this is just something that’s been bothering him for awhile and now that Portland has pretty much locked up the playoffs they’re willing to rest him.
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Whatever the reasoning, hopefully the injury won’t be a problem for Nurkic long term or the Blazers’ playoff chances. He’s been a key part of Portland’s turnaround and there’s still just a little bit too much time left to be comfortable. However, a good team should be able to maintain the status quo for two weeks and if Portland really is a playoff team, then they should survive.