The Background

Gordan Hayward was a very underappreciated player before his injury in Boston. In Utah, he was averaging 21.9 points, 3.5 assists and 5.4 rebounds. He was also a good perimeter defender and averaged a steal per game. This was all happening for Hayward at age 26 before his injury. 

Pre-Injury

Before the devestating injury, Hayward was excited to start a new beginning in Boston with star teammates like Kyrie Irving, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Hayward signed a $128 million contract for 4 years on the Boston Celtics. The Celtics were excited to have a new good player on the roster to team with their existing stars and Hayward was excited for his Celtics debut. All was going well for the first 5 minutes until Hayward went up for an alley-oop pass and collided with LeBron James mid air. 

The Injury

It turns out that Gordon Hayward had a fractured left ankle and Tim Bontemps described that Hayward’s “foot looked to be at a 90 degree angle from his leg.” Hayward’s injury was one of the injurys that also had a really bad aftermath. Hayward wrote that his foot “didn’t seem like it was hurting that much ”at first, but then he experienced “probably the most pain I’ve ever felt in my life” in a span of minutes. After the game, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens told reporters Hayward had suffered a fractured tibia and a dislocated ankle. Gordon got the fractured tibia as a result of his poor landing from the alley-oop as he put too much pressure and force on his bone. The tibia which is the second largest bone in the body is used to bear the majority of the body weight. With a fractured tibia, it would become really painful and tough to even walk. Luckily, a fractured tibia takes 4-6 months to fully recover and this is a short period of time compared to other severe injuries.