The NBA season doesn’t truly begin until we spiral into a maddening sequence of injuries. Yesterday the Utah Jazz, who already had Jusuf Nurkic in the injured list, were struck by fate with injuries to Lauri Markkanen (wrist) and Jaren Jackson Jr. in the first half. A diagnosis has already been issued for the former Grizzlies player, and it isn’t encouraging.
Jaren Jackson Jr. suffered a tear to the medial collateral ligament of his knee and will miss between 6 and 8 weeks of competition. Ty Jerome fell onto his planted knee and had to leave the game.
The big man has barely appeared in seven games with the Jazz since arriving in February, having also ended his previous season early to undergo surgery on his left knee (the current injury is in the right).
Utah is struggling to get off the ground in what should be a return to competitiveness, and Jackson isn’t helping them in building a respectable defense. Now, in Salt Lake City they await whether Markkanen’s issue is nothing serious so as not to reduce their frontcourt rotation to Kyle Filipowski (Jaxson Hayes has started off frankly poorly and Mo Bamba hasn’t really been a NBA-caliber player).
