While the public got the most important injury news regarding Nikola Jokic early Tuesday morning, the first report didn’t come with any medical diagnosis. But now, Shams Charania of ESPN has officially reported that Jokic has a bone bruise in his left knee after the hyperextension, but that all of his ligaments are intact.
We knew that Jokic hyperextended his knee, but that’s just the action that caused the injury, not the actual injury itself. A bone bruise could have been assumed once it was announced that Jokic would be reevaluated in four weeks following the MRI, but still, it was odd that the original update featured no specific injury.
This doesn’t change anything from any earlier reports, but it’s good to have official word that it’s nothing more than a bone bruise. The injury looked extremely painful and possibly disastrous in the moment, as Jokic, one of the most durable players in the league, went down hard, rolling around on the ground in obvious pain.
He was able to get up and limp to the locker room, but it didn’t look good, and fans were panicking. Any Jokic injury warrants a relative amount of panic, but this felt like it could truly be catastrophic in the moment.
Jokic should be back at full strength during regular season
Luckily, it appears that the worst has been avoided, as the most crucial part of all of these reports is that Jokic’s ligaments aren’t damaged. That’s what will allow the Joker to heal with rest and rehab.
The four-week timeline isn’t hard and fast, but it’s a good indication that with a month off from playing, Jokic should be close to fully healed. There may be some ramp-up time after that, but if all goes well, the Nuggets should have their three-time MVP back to the height of his powers after the All-Star break.
It’s certainly not an ideal scenario, but all things considered, this is probably the best possible outcome after Jokic went down. The team will get him back with a month or more left to go in the regular season. They should have a chance to reacclimate him, to allow him to get back up to speed, and hopefully for the team to win some games and get into a rhythm.
As long as they can enter the playoffs at full strength, this team will have a shot regardless of matchups and seeding. But if they are compromised by health, especially when it comes to Jokic, they’ll be drawing dead against almost any potential postseason opponent.