The NBA was hit with a severe blow Monday night as the consensus best player in the league, Nikola Jokic, went down with an apparent left knee injury.
As the Denver Nuggets await the MRI results on the three-time MVP’s injury, sports medicine doctor and injury expert Brian Sutterer analyzed replays of Jokic going down against the Miami Heat, and whether he may have suffered a devastating ACL injury.
“I’m more optimistic than pessimistic on Nikola Jokic’s injury,” Sutterer wrote on X, while sharing a YouTube video analyzing the Jokic injury.
For starters, Sutterer said it was “a positive sign” that the Nuggets listed Jokic as “questionable” when he left the court on Monday night rather than ruling him out immediately, as the latter would have meant a more catastrophic injury.
Nikola Jokic Injury Outcome?
Sutterer explained why he doesn’t expect the MRI result to reveal an ACL tear.
“This, overall, looks like a lower grade, lower severity of hyperextension,” he said.
Sutterer then examined various angles of Jokic hyperextending his left knee, while concluding that “it doesn’t look like much” of an awkward bend for the Serbian star.
“Overall, I don’t see an excessive amount of hyperextension, and I don’t see an excessive amount of varus or valgus, meaning inward or outward movement.”
On X, he urged Nuggets fans to take his examination with a grain of salt.
“Hyperextensions are notoriously one of the harder injuries to predict from video, so don’t be too hard on me if I’m wrong here,” he clarified on X.
“But I’ve watched a lot of these injuries on replay over the years and do think it’s more positive than negative.🤞”
Nuggets Hoping for the Best
After Monday’s loss to the Heat, Nuggets head coach David Adelman said he and the team were awaiting the MRI results rather than jumping to conclusions.
“All I know is that it’s just a left knee injury,” he said. “He’s got to go through the whole process of what it is. I watched it at halftime, and it looked like his feet got tangled up with a teammate, and obviously, immediately, he knew something was wrong.”
Adelman acknowledged the brutal nature of the modern NBA, where superstar players routinely go down with catastrophic injuries.
“This is part of the NBA. Anybody that gets hurt in this game…it’s kind of gut-wrenching,” he said.
“Especially as special as he is. So we’ll find out more tomorrow, and we’ll move on as a team. Obviously right now, just more concerned about him as a person with the disappointment of going through something like that…we’re hoping for the best.”
If Jokic is out for an extended period, it’ll mark his first significant injury since he entered the league in 2014-15. Since his rookie season, the Serbian big man has played 69 or more games every year, including two seasons where he played 80 games.
The MRI results on Nikola Jokic’s injury are expected on Tuesday, Dec. 30.
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