Portland Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic faces a long road to recovery from Monday's gruesome compound fracture of his left leg, but as Shams Charania of The Athletic reports, Nurkic has avoided any nerve and muscle damage in his leg, which is at least a small bit of good news amid a crushing situation.
Nurkic crumpled to the floor during the second overtime of the Blazers' win over the Brooklyn Nets, with many players running away from the big man, horrified by the angle at which his leg was facing following the injury. He was immediately tended to by medical personnel, who placed an air cast on his leg and had him stretchered off the floor. It comes as no surprise that Nurkic's season is over, and Charania confirms that he will be out indefinitely.
Nurkic appeared in 72 games (all of which were starts) this season for Portland and was in the midst of a career year at the time of his injury. Averaging 15.6 points and 10.4 rebounds per contest, the Blazers' starting center finishes a season averaging a double-double for the first year of his career.
The Blazers and Nurkic agreed to a contract extension prior to the start of the year, with the Bosnian product having come into his own during parts of three seasons with the organization. With teammate CJ McCollum already sidelined due to a knee injury, the loss of Nurkic deals a crushing blow to Portland in its hopes of reaching the NBA Finals in 2019, but the immediate concerns are over whether the team will get its anchor back on the floor at all moving forward.
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