The Portland Trail Blazers are about to get one gigantic boost to their rotation. Jusuf Nurkic, who suffered a nasty leg injury last March, has not been able to take the floor during the 2019-20 campaign as he’s worked to get his body back to 100 percent. But in an interview with Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, the big man revealed that he’ll be back on the floor just days before the one-year anniversary of his injury.
As Nurkic told Haynes, he’s slated to return to the floor on March 15, when Portland takes on the Houston Rockets.
“I worked my ass off to be in position to get back on the court and help my team, but game speed is going to be different,” Nurkic said. “I’m not going to be playing 40 minutes. But for me, mentally, I need to get these reps in before I can play [extended minutes]. Physically, I’m good. I had a calf strain recently, which is normal for the injury I had. I’ve been pleased with where my rehab is going. I never doubted I’d be back, but I had to make sure I was 100 percent. I can’t wait for [March 15].”
While the injury was quite bad — it was eventually determined to be a compound fracture in his left leg that required surgery — there was a bit of a silver lining in that he avoided any muscle or nerve damage. He’ll now re-join a Blazers squad that is in a battle for a postseason berth, one that currently sits 3.5 games behind the upstart Memphis Grizzlies for the 8-seed out West.
There are plenty of questions that will need to be answered about how Nurkic fits in with this particular Portland roster, namely how minutes will be allocated between himself and Hasan Whiteside, but that can all be figured out in due time. For now, the Blazers are assuredly overjoyed that their standout big man is back.
