No.5 – Rudy Gobert injured in Boston
Rudy Gobert‘s first injury was bad enough. In an early-season game against the Miami Heat on November 10th, Miami’s Dion Waiters made a questionable play to pursue a loose ball and rolled right into Rudy’s legs. The borderline dirty play caused Gobert to suffer a knee contusion which would keep him sidelined for nearly a month.
When he did return, it was clear that the big man was still having a hard time getting back up to one hundred percent, but Jazz fans were confident that he would be able to do so and would therefore go on to be a major factor in Utah’s unbelievably tough month of December. Unfortunately, as bad times piled up and the Jazz began to plummet down the standings, they went just 1-4 in the first five games following Rudy’s return.
The sixth game would ultimately end up a win, but it came at a very steep price.
A mere two minutes into the game against the Boston Celtics on December 15th, Rudy Gobert was forced to leave with injury and wouldn’t return. This moment was such a bad blow to the Jazz and so much worse than his prior injury against the Heat for a handful of reasons.
First of all, the Jazz were struggling as it was, riding a four-game losing streak into Boston. That context made Rudy’s loss to injury all the more grueling. Second of all, Gobert had just barely returned from injury – a return which was supposed to propel the Jazz back to a high caliber of play. Instead, it was deemed that he would simply miss even more time at about the worst possible time of year.
No wonder some Jazz fans were vehemently calling for the team to tank at the time.
But perhaps what stung even more was the fact that the injury was caused, not by an opposing player, but by teammate Derrick Favors. Of course, the incident was totally unintentional, but Favors fell into Gobert’s legs, resulting in a sprained PCL and bruised tibia which kept Gobert out for over a month.
The fact that Utah went on to win this game helped soften the blow somewhat, but considering that the Jazz were struggling so much at this time, that Rudy Gobert had only just returned and that the injury was caused by a teammate make this one of the most unfortunate moments of the 2017-18 season.