3. Nurkic expedites his recovery process
As far as breaking your leg in half goes, Jusuf Nurkic got pretty lucky. Despite fracturing both his tibia and fibula, he sustained no permanent damage to the nerves or muscle tissue in his leg. Jeff Feinblatt (a local orthopedic surgeon that specializes in lower body injuries) described the injury in detail during an interview with Colin Hoobler of The Oregonian.
"“This injury is typically treated with a rod placed within the larger bone (tibia). This allows early weight bearing, although healing of the bone can take four months or longer. One study found 88 percent of patients returned to sport (recreational and competitive) after treatment of a tibia fracture with a rod at an average of 41 weeks.” -Feinblatt"
Considering Nurkic sustained the injury on March 25, he should be well into the recovery process by now. And from what we’ve seen so far, that appears to be true. We are now 168 days removed from his injury, and means he should in theory be on a timeline to return in early January. Now, it should be noted that this goes against the early February date that has been mentioned by Neil Olshey himself.
Depending on the outlook of the Portland Trail Blazers season in January, they may be inclined to bring him back a month early — as Feinblatt suggested he should be ready for. The NBA trade deadline is also February 7, so that would also provide the added benefit of evaluating Whiteside’s performance and deciding if they should hang on to him, or potentially swing him for a star if Nurkic can hold his own.