Lord , Carry Him Now 🙏🏾

October 17, 2017 7:38 PM

Celtics’ Gordon Hayward Suffers Gruesome Ankle Fracture in Opener [WARNING: Graphic Video of Injury of Fractured Ankle] [YouTube] “Less than six minutes into his first game as a member of the Boston Celtics on Tuesday, Gordon Hayward badly fractured his left ankle on a failed alley-oop attempt. The injury is a crushing blow to the Celtics in their quest for Eastern Conference superiority. Hayward, a forward who signed a four-year, $128 million contract with the Celtics in July, was to pair with Al Horford and Kyrie Irving in a new Big Three for a team that has been on the rise for the last several seasons. On the play, Hayward was leaping toward the basket to receive a pass from Irving when he became entangled with LeBron James and Jae Crowder of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Hayward landed on his left foot, which twisted in gruesome fashion under him as he crumbled to the floor.” [via: The New York Times]
posted by Fizz (22 comments total)

If you don't want to watch a video of the graphic injury but need some context - here's a video where you don't see Gordon but do see the reaction of the bench and the players on the court
posted by thecjm at 7:42 PM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

Mod note: If sports and/or sports injuries aren't your thing, you can just pass this by. It's a big story for the NBA and the Celtics and it's reasonable for people to want to discuss it. Also, thecjm, I think we cross-posted fixing your link so if that's not the same as how you fixed it, that's why!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:44 PM on October 17, 2017 [10 favorites]

'Crumpled' surely?
posted by unliteral at 7:45 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

In other NBA injury news from today, Nikola Mirotic of the Bulls is out indefinitely and in the hospital due to being sucker punched by teammate Bobby Portis after a practice scuffle.
posted by thecjm at 7:53 PM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

The problem with the video--as I foolishly watched it--isn't so much the visual as the audio. The break is clearly audible. A comment on Deadspin compared the sound to a Vlasic pickle commercial, which should be plenty enough info for judging whether you want to watch or not.
posted by stannate at 7:53 PM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

Oh hell, that's about as gnarly of an NBA injury as I've seen* and I'm a pretty big fan. I know there are bigger implications for the Celts/Cavs rivalry and Eastern Conference overall, but dang, I just hope the best for his recovery.

*Shaun Livingston's knee injury. Google at your own risk. He did come back and re-establish his career, but it took quite a while
posted by Ufez Jones at 7:54 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

This was shocking and heart-breaking to watch. Could be a career ending. Likely, even. Very sad. My thoughts are with his very, extremely, devastatingly broken ankle. Poor guy.
posted by metasav at 7:54 PM on October 17, 2017

Such a weird thing to have happened. I watched it as it occurred and I was not prepared for that shot of the injury when they showed it. Nobody will know what I'm talking about, but Lebron often falls in an exaggerated manner when he's going down (I'm not talking about the flops, mind you) to avoid just such a thing. But just going up for the lob like that and encountering someone in mid-air, it's a horrible feeling. The one I experienced that I can remember, a ball ended up coming off of the floor and getting knocked high in the air around half court. When you have a good vertical leap, your first instinct is to jump, because you're used to being able to jump higher than whoever you're playing against. Well this time, the guy jumped just as high as me, and we met at the top of our jump, and both grabbed the ball, basically pushing ourselves backward, and we came careening down together.

We were both okay, but when you jump like that, you're looking up at the ball and out of the side of your vision, waiting for the other player to be under you (because you've jumped higher). So it's scary as hell to realize your torso is starting to turn level to the ground, 5 feet off the ground.

Hayward's injury really was just a freaky thing. There's no real thing you can do once you get bumped in the air like that, other than to try to grab another player, which I think he did - I'm not watching it again - and basically pray.
posted by cashman at 8:03 PM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

What do these huge contracts typically stipulate about career ending injuries?
posted by dilaudid at 8:04 PM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

The camaraderie shown by both all the players/staff is heartwarming. Get well soon Hayward.
posted by asra at 8:05 PM on October 17, 2017

This report says it's a dislocated ankle and a fractured tibia, which sounds bad to this layman but not career-threatening at all. I hope.
posted by Ampersand692 at 8:08 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

dilaudid: Large contracts like these are typically insured against injury.
posted by Ampersand692 at 8:24 PM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

He won't be right for a while, for sure. It's been pointed out that it is his left ankle, so for him his plant leg. So that adds another level of concern and time since he jumps off that leg. Also a good amount of his game relied on his being able to elevate at the rim. He'd go to the basket and dunk on people, especially as he got stronger and stronger. So after a while, some people got it, and when he went to the basket, he'd avoid getting fouled or having people attack his shot cause some guys knew better than to jump. He won't have that same explosiveness at first most likely, so he'll have to change his game. But with modern medicine and drugs, anything is probably possible.
posted by cashman at 8:26 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Whatever happens, Hayward is out for the entirety of the season. But the good news: it might not be any more than that.

Paul George broke his leg in 2014 in a Team USA scrimmage just before the world championships (for those who can handle seeing such, here is the Youtube - it's much less graphic than Hayward's injury but his foot still definitely goes perpendicular to his calf), and after a year of rehab returned basically just as good as ever. Shaun Livingston broke his leg in spectacularly gruesome fashion in 2007; it took him two years to come back and a third to really be an effective NBA player again, but now he's the backup point guard on the Golden State Warriors, who are probably the best basketball team of all time talent-wise.

Most of the great players whose careers have been cut short by injury tend to have ongoing deteriorating conditions - Brandon Roy's deteriorating knee cartilage, Yao Ming's microfractures, that sort of thing. Hayward has good odds to return with most of his game intact, at least in the short run. But it is an ankle fracture rather than a leg break, and that has the potential to introduce debilitating arthritis in the medium term, so...
posted by mightygodking at 9:16 PM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

I watched this happen live and it was devastating. Extremely sad, but he should be able to come back from it, he’s a strong guy!

As for players with terrible injuries: Greg Oden.
posted by gucci mane at 9:53 PM on October 17, 2017

Poor Hayward. Since the Celtics traded a lot of good players and bench depth to bring him and Kyrie to the team, losing him must be tough from a sports POV too, on top of the human aspect.
posted by ersatz at 11:16 PM on October 17, 2017

that really, really sucks (and i say that as a lifelong lakers fan). he seems like a nice guy and always played hard for the jazz before the trade.

i think he'll recover and help the celtics make a playoff push. (their young guys will certainly develop at 2x this season now.) paul george came back from a gruesome injury a few years back, and he's 110%. plus, hayward has never had a serious injury.
posted by wibari at 11:53 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

FUCK, and let us be absolutely unequivocal about this, THAT.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:36 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

I have Hayward in my fantasy team, and I'm ashamed to say my immediate reaction on watching it live was "oh no, my team just took a big hit"

But as it became apparent what had happened that quickly morphed into the consensus "awww, fuuuuuck that sucks for Hayward"

I really hope he comes back from this like Paul George and not like Shaun Livingston. No offence, but Livingston had to drastically change how he plays and adapt to a backup role.
posted by trif at 3:46 AM on October 18, 2017

Could be a career ending.

This is probably not the case. Clean break with no ligament or blood supply damage (which it sounds like is the case) should heal just fine. Remember this is really similar to Paul George’s injury and he has been back for awhile. It’s much better than Livingston’s and he’s come back against much much much longer odds.
posted by paulcole at 8:25 AM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

i watched the video of this last night thinking it wouldn't be THAT bad, and ended up almost knocking my phone out of my hands trying to stop the video. the camera guy clearly had no idea how bad it was or else he wouldn't have zoomed in - it literally looks like hayward's foot is on backwards

anyway i really really hope he recovers well and makes a comeback. i'm not a huge gordon hayward fan but i really hate to see any athlete get injured like that. i think he's got a great chance of making a better comeback than shaun (who is one my faves but yeah he really had to change his game)

side note: saw lots of assholes on twitter last night saying "man i wouldn't wish that on anyone...except KD" so yeah sports twitter was gross all around. who the hell wishes that on a athlete in their prime
posted by burgerrr at 10:04 AM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm a Cavs fan and was excited for the season opener against the team that would probably be the Cavs' biggest rival in the East. But you could tell after the injury that neither team really felt like finishing the game.

LeBron James and some other Cavs (including Isaiah Thomas who was on the Celtics last year and allegedly actively recruited Hayward to come to Boston) visited Heyward in the locker room during the game.

Also other random thought: Kyrie Irving was playing when Paul George broke his leg at the Team USA scrimmage and he was there for Hayward's injury. Gotta wonder how that affects him as a player--especially since his talent is aggressively attacking the rim.
posted by mcmile at 12:56 PM on October 18, 2017