Bad, very bad times for the Charlotte Hornets. Carolina’s team is 6-14, and it seems increasingly clear that their destiny is another rebuild and a pursuit of victory. very long Shadow of Victor Wembanyama. Problems and injuries, of course, are helping the team to be very uncompetitive. First disappeared from the map Miles Bridges, who did not renew his contract and is currently out of the NBA for a serious case of domestic violence for which he has been sentenced to three years on probation. The forward avoided jail, which seemed like a very real option when he was arrested in June just before he was released as a restricted free agent in the NBA. After, LaMelo Ball has had recurring ankle problems and has only played three games. And now Gordon Hayward, who has missed nine of the team’s twenty total so far, is out indefinitely with a shoulder injury that is more serious than it seemed at first.
Hayward began having left shoulder problems in the November 2 game against the Chicago Bulls. He missed the second half of that game and the next eight. He returned on November 18, against the Cavs. And he played that game and two more, the last one against the Sixers on the 23rd and with very bad feelings: 7 points, 3/10 shooting, 4 turnovers. He has now had to stop for what is finally a scapular fracture that injury specialist Jeff Stotts defines as very rare in the NBA and much more common in baseball players. And set the recovery time at about eight weeks.
The Hornets have limited themselves to defining as “reviewable week by week” the time out of a Hayward whose wife, Robyn, has added fuel to the fire by being the one who has announced her husband’s exact injury in a writing on networks in which she has been very harsh with the Hornets as an organization: “I what he really has is a fractured scapular shoulder, and with her they made him play the last game. That’s why he couldn’t even raise his arm. Everybody knows that what Gordon wants is to win and play the way he has to be played. He is the most honest and trustworthy person you will ever meet, on the track and off. If he is going to be without playing, it will not be due to a minor injury… I prefer to leave it there and not get into major issues. But just so we’re clear, and since the team isn’t saying it, he has a broken shoulder. That is a bone that is broken. I’m tired of not protecting the players. I just spoke to the mother of one of the young players on the team and she was telling me the same thing…”.
Robyn Hayward doesn’t want it to be suggested that her husband doesn’t play when he could, or that he takes leave whenever he gets the chance. At 32 years old, this is the umpteenth physical problem for a great player whose injuries have not allowed him to reach his ceiling. Number 9 in the draft in 2010, he played until 2017 in the Utah Jazz and was an all star. That summer he signed with the Celtics to a four-year, $128 million deal. Right after starting his first game with the greens, he suffered a terrifying leg injury (ankle, tibia and fibula…) and missed the entire 2017-18 season. Since then, in four and a half courses, he has only played 228 games. In 2020 the Hornets bet on him, and he signed via sign and trade for four years and 120 million. A four that seems terrible for the franchise in view of the forward’s constant physical problems, which He has $30 million guaranteed this season and $31.5 million next season before becoming a free agent in the summer of 2024.