MIAMI (AP) — Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton is going to miss the entire season because of the torn Achilles he suffered in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Boston’s Jayson Tatum — who hopes otherwise — might also miss the whole season after tearing his Achilles in the playoffs last spring. Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James and Oklahoma City’s Jalen Williams have all missed big chunks of time this season with various injuries.
And now, Denver’s Nikola Jokic is going to miss at least four weeks as well.
Nobody — not even those six All-NBA players from last season — is immune from the injury bug this season. The final day of 2025 is Wednesday and from an NBA health perspective, it might be time to say good riddance to these 12 months. Some of the league’s biggest names have dealt with significant injury issues in this calendar year, and in many cases those woes are carrying over into 2026.
“It sucks,” Denver coach David Adelman said after Jokic was hurt.
He’s not wrong.
Jokic got hurt Monday night in Miami, on a play with about three seconds left in the first half where he would have been better off just doing nothing. It seemed like he was trying to help a teammate defend a drive, got his foot stepped on in the process, hyperextended his left knee and left Nuggets fans — from Denver to Serbia and all points in between — waiting to hear the team announce the severity of the injury. It wasn’t as bad as some might have thought; Jokic should be back in a few weeks, which means tests confirmed there was no serious structural damage.
But in the NBA, when the games basically come every other day on average, even missing just one month could mean missing 15 or more games.
It feels like a ton of guys are hurt. The NBA says the actual numbers say otherwise.
