Jazz’s Vince Williams Jr. May Have ACL Injury In Left Knee
Vince Williams Jr. had to be carried to the locker room during Monday’s loss at Houston and multiple sources who spoke to Sarah Todd of The Deseret News (Bluesky links) believe the Jazz guard sustained a “significant ACL injury.”
According to Todd, Williams left the arena on crutches and will undergo an MRI in Salt Lake City on Tuesday.
“It doesn’t look good, we’ll get an MRI,” head coach Will Hardy said.
Williams injured his knee while running back on defense when the Rockets had a fast break. He was bumped by Tari Eason and lost his balance, and his left knee hyperextended inward in a gruesome manner. The video is not for the squeamish (Bluesky link via Todd).
Hardy was upset about the play, which wasn’t called a foul, Todd adds.
“That’s not basketball,” Hardy said.
Eason checked on Williams after the game, Todd reports (via Bluesky), and let Williams know he wasn’t trying to injure him.
The 47th overall pick in the 2022 draft, Williams was acquired by Utah earlier this month in the Jaren Jackson Jr. trade with Memphis. Entering Monday’s game, Williams was averaging 5.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 3.0 assists in five appearances with Utah (15.2 MPG).
The former Toledo guard played in 34 games with the Grizzlies prior to being traded, averaging 8.0 PPG, 4.4 APG and 4.0 RPG in 21.6 MPG.
Williams is in his fourth NBA season and is making $2.3MM this season. The Jazz hold a $2.5MM team option on his contract for 2026/27.
Jazz’s Jusuf Nurkic To Undergo Surgery, Miss Rest Of Season
Jazz center Jusuf Nurkic will undergo a surgical procedure on his nose on Tuesday and will miss the remainder of the season, NBA on Prime insider Chris Haynes reports (via Twitter).
According to Haynes (Twitter link), Nurkic has had issues breathing and sleeping since he broke his nose a few years ago.
Nurkic has appeared in 41 games this season, including 36 starts. The 31-year-old big man averaged 10.9 points, 10.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists in 26.4 minutes per game.
Nurkic hasn’t played since the All-Star break. Earlier in the season, he missed time due to a toe injury and also had several DNP-CDs. He was a prime candidate to be dealt before the Feb. 5 trade deadline due his expiring $19.3MM contract.
The Jazz never found a suitable deal for him, so instead that money will come off their cap and Nurkic will be seeking a new opportunity as an unrestricted free agent. Utah is expected to have significant cap space this offseason to chase free agents and facilitate trades, though the team may also have interest in bringing back Nurkic.
The Jazz raised eyebrows over the summer when they attached a second-round pick to Collin Sexton in a trade with Charlotte for Nurkic, who was coming off a down year. However, the big man played a larger role than anticipated due to Walker Kessler‘s season-ending shoulder injury.
With Nurkic, Kessler, and Jaren Jackson Jr. all out for the rest of the season, Kyle Filipowski, Kevin Love and Oscar Tshiebwe are Utah’s options in the middle.
And-Ones: MVP Race, No. 1 Pick, Peterson, P. Gasol
Reigning Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander remains the favorite to claim the award again in 2025/26, according to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, who recently conducted his second MVP straw poll. The Thunder guard was the only player to appear on all 100 ballots and accumulated 930 points.
Injuries to top players have significantly impacted the MVP race this season, Bontemps writes, as multiple contenders for the award may not qualify due to the 65-game rule. Despite being sidelined with an abdominal strain, Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t in imminent danger of not meeting that threshold — he’ll likely have 10 total missed games when he’s reevaluated later this week.
Nuggets center Nikola Jokic remains in second place (700 points), but the gap between the two players has grown since Bontemps’ initial poll in December. That’s largely because the three-time MVP missed 15 games because of a knee injury and can’t have more than two additional absences without becoming ineligible for major postseason awards.
Pistons guard Cade Cunningham (382 points) and Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama (242 points) were the only other players to receive first-place votes. Lakers guard Luka Doncic (177 points) rounds out the top five of Bontemps’ poll.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- How much would the No. 1 overall pick in the loaded 2026 NBA draft be worth if it were available in an auction? Brian Windhorst of ESPN briefly discussed that topic on the Hoop Collective podcast (hat tip to RealGM). “I was talking to a league executive today and he said to me, this is after Darryn Peterson had 23 points in 18 minutes and after we’ve seen some other top guys have big time games over the last four or five days,” Windhorst said. “… I had an executive tell me that the No. 1 pick this year is worth $100 million. If you gave the opportunity to buy that pick, teams would pay $100 million for it. Keep that in mind when the Jazz were fined $500,000.”
- Although Peterson’s sporadic for Kansas this season has undoubtedly been frustrating for him, the school, and its fans, his health issues are unlikely to have much of an effect on the 19-year-old guard’s standing as a top prospect in the 2026 draft class, per Brendan Marks and Justin Williams of The Athletic. “He’s elite, elite, elite,” one NBA scout told The Athletic. “When he’s fully healthy, the shot-making is on another level. … When it comes down to it, man, if you’ve seen this guy play in high school, and you saw those matchups, like, Darryn is the guy. For sure.”
- Hall of Famer Pau Gasol has been selected by Olympic athletes to represent them on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) board through the 2028 summer games in Los Angeles, according to The Associated Press.
Southwest Notes: JJJ, Iisalo, Fears, Murray, Durant
Jaren Jackson Jr. shares his memories of nearly eight seasons with the Grizzlies and expresses his love to Memphis fans in a first-person piece for The Players’ Tribune. Jackson also relays the experience of finding out he had been traded to the Jazz, saying he knew right away that’s why he was called into general manager Zach Kleiman‘s office.
“It’s funny, though, when the conversation ended I was just awkwardly looking around all confused like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction,” Jackson wrote. “Like, Well, what now? I literally asked him, “Can I go back upstairs and say bye?” Like he was gonna press a button, and the trap door was gonna open up.”
Jackson stated that those final goodbyes were lighthearted, but they represented the end of a significant part of his NBA career. While the relationships may remain, he realized he was seeing his friends as teammates for the final time.
“But one thing I’ll never forget was a moment in the locker room before I left, when everyone was joking around again,” Jackson added. “And it was just so weird because in my head it was like, Wow, this is the last time I’m gonna see this. They were about to leave to get on a plane. It was a wrap. But I was joking around as if I was gonna see them later. I was just laughing, deep down thinking like, ‘Wow, I’m definitely gonna miss y’all boys.’ I didn’t say it in the moment. But I’m saying it now.”
There’s more from the Southwest Division:
- Prior to Saturday’s game, Grizzlies coach Tuomas Iisalo told reporters that his approach to the season hasn’t been affected by the Jackson trade or other personnel moves, per Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel (Twitter link). “Well, we’re trying to accomplish a lot,” Iisalo said. “The expectations have not changed. It doesn’t have anything to do with the roster we play. We still expect everybody to give max effort, max focus.”
- It’s been a season filled with growing pains for Jeremiah Fears and the Pelicans, but the rookie guard expresses confidence that better times are ahead in an interview with Sam Yip of HoopsHype. “Being able to lose to understand how to win, I think that’s huge,” Fears said. “We’ve been in a lot of very close games. We just got to learn how to finish. And I think once we learn how to finish, we’ll be really, really good and we’ll end up flipping the switch.”
- The Pelicans are targeting Tuesday against Golden State for Dejounte Murray‘s season debut, according to Rod Walker of NOLA (Twitter link).“I expect him to be there in the next couple games,” interim coach James Borrego said before tonight’s contest. “Hopefully it’s Tuesday night. We’d all be excited for that.”
- Rockets coach Ime Udoka would like to cut back on Kevin Durant‘s minutes, relays Varun Shankar of The Houston Chronicle (Twitter link). Durant is logging 36.7 minutes per game in his first season with the team, and Udoka would prefer to trim that number to 33 or 34.
Jaren Jackson Jr. Undergoes Knee Surgery
Jaren Jackson Jr. underwent successful surgery on Tuesday morning to remove a localized pigmented villonodular synovitis (PVNS) growth in his left knee, the Jazz confirmed today in a press release.
According to the team, which first announced last week that Jackson would be undergoing the procedure, the surgery was performed in Salt Lake City by Dr. Travis Maak, the Jazz’s head orthopedic team physician. The former Defensive Player of the Year will begin the rehabilitation process and will be reevaluated in four weeks, per the club.
Despite the fact that Jackson will be examined in four weeks, Utah previously indicated that he’ll be out for the rest of the season. The expectation is that the big man will be fully healthy for training camp in the fall.
Jackson, 26, was traded from Memphis to Utah at this month’s deadline and appeared in three games for his new team before being shut down, averaging 22.3 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 2.0 steals in 24.0 minutes per contest.
The Jazz stated last week that they identified the PVNS growth in Jackson’s knee via MRI during a post-trade physical and determined along with Jackson and his representatives – after consulting multiple medical experts – that surgery was necessary to address the issue.
According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, a PVNS growth isn’t cancerous and doesn’t spread to other areas of the body, but PVNS is a progressive disease that can lead to bone damage and arthritis. In most cases, surgery is necessary to remove the damaged joint lining and the growth.
Second-year Jazz forward Cody Williams, who started each of his past 15 games prior to Jackson’s debut, came off the bench while JJJ was active, then returned to the starting five last Thursday in Utah’s final contest before the All-Star break. He’ll likely remain in that starting role with Jackson sidelined.
Jazz Fined $500K By NBA; Pacers Docked $100K
The Jazz have been fined $500K for “conduct detrimental to the league” related to Utah’s games on February 7 (at Orlando) and Feb. 9 (at Miami), the NBA announced today (via Twitter).
Star forwards Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. sat out the entire fourth quarter of both of those contests, even though the league says they were “otherwise able to continue to play and the outcomes of the games were thereafter in doubt.” Utah was up seven points entering the fourth quarter against Orlando and wound up losing by three; on Monday, the team was up three points entering the final period and won by four.
Jackson, whom the Jazz recently acquired in a trade with Memphis, will undergo season-ending surgery for a growth on his knee over the All-Star break. According to Tony Jones of The Athletic (Twitter link), the Jazz wanted to shut Jackson down when they discovered the issue in his physical, but the former Defensive Player of the Year was “adamant” about his desire to play at least one home game before the procedure.
Kevin O’Connor of Yahoo Sports has heard similarly, stating (via Twitter) that Jackson wanted to play a few games with the Jazz prior to undergoing surgery, which O’Connor calls preventive.
Sources tell Jones that Jackson was on a restriction of 25 minutes, which is one reason why he didn’t play in the fourth quarter of either of those games. Of course, even if that’s true, it doesn’t explain Markkanen’s late-game absence.
Jazz owner Ryan Smith responded to the fine on social media (Twitter link), posting an eye roll emoji along with, “Agree to disagree … Also, we won the game in Miami and got fined? That makes sense …”
The Pacers, meanwhile, were fined $100K for violating the NBA’s player participation policy in relation to Indiana’s game vs. Utah on Feb. 3.
On the second night of a back-to-back, the Pacers didn’t play Pascal Siakam — who is considered a “star” under the terms of the policy — and two other starters (they weren’t specifically named, but the league was likely referencing Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith). The league claims all three of those players could have suited up.
Alternatively, per the NBA, the Pacers could have sat the players in other games in a way that would have “better promoted compliance with the policy.” The player participation policy discourages teams from sitting several healthy players in the same game of a back-to-back set.
“Overt behavior like this that prioritizes draft position over winning undermines the foundation of NBA competition and we will respond accordingly to any further actions that compromise the integrity of our games,” commissioner Adam Silver said in the press release. “Additionally, we are working with our Competition Committee and Board of Governors to implement further measures to root out this type of conduct.”
Ace Bailey, Bub Carrington, Jahmir Young Added To Rising Stars Event
Jazz forward Ace Bailey, Wizards guard Bub Carrington and Heat guard Jahmir Young have been selected to participate in Friday’s Rising Stars competition as injury replacements, the NBA announced in a series of tweets.
Bailey will replace Mavericks star Cooper Flagg, who is unavailable due to a left midfoot sprain, while Carrington will take the place of his Wizards teammate, Alex Sarr, who is sidelined by a strained hamstring. Young will fill in for Bulls guard Mac McClung, who is out with a right calf injury.
Bailey will be part of Team Melo, coached by Carmelo Anthony, Carrington will be on Team T-Mac, coached by Tracy McGrady, and Young is on Team Austin, coached by Austin Rivers.
Selected with the fifth pick in last year’s draft, Bailey is part of a talented rookie class throughout the league. The 19-year-old has appeared in 48 games, making 37 starts, and is averaging 11.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.7 assists in 26.2 minutes per night with .449/.343/.708 shooting numbers.
Carrington, 20, was the 14th pick in the 2024 draft. He hasn’t missed a game in his NBA career and is averaging 10.2 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.6 assists in his second season with .402/.393/.761 shooting splits.
Young has spent most of the season in the G League and has only appeared in eight games with Miami. The 25-year-old is averaging 26.6 points, 5.1 rebounds and 9.8 assists in 16 regular season games with Sioux Falls.
The Rising Stars event will match three teams consisting of NBA rookies and sophomores, along with a fourth team of G League players. They will compete in a three-game tournament to crown the winner.
Jaren Jackson Jr. To Undergo Season-Ending Surgery
Jaren Jackson Jr. will have surgery to remove a localized pigmented villonodular synovitis (PVNS) growth in his left knee and will miss the remainder of the season, the Jazz announced in a press release.
The team states that the growth was identified in an MRI during a physical after Jackson was acquired in a trade with Memphis last week. The procedure is expected to take place during the All-Star break.
Jackson appeared in three games with Utah, averaging 22.3 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 24 minutes per night. The Jazz went 2-1 with him in their lineup.
Utah acquired Jackson to be part of a supersized frontcourt for the future alongside Lauri Markkanen and Walker Kessler. Jackson and Markkanen are both under contract for the next three seasons, with Jackson holding a $53.5MM player option for 2029/30. Kessler is considered likely to be re-signed this summer as he approaches restricted free agency.
Jackson is a two-time All-Star and was selected as Defensive Player of the Year in 2022/23. He has been named to the All-Defensive team three times and has twice led the NBA in blocks during a season.
The Jazz will convey this year’s first-round pick to Oklahoma City if it falls outside the top eight, so even before Jackson’s health issue surfaced there was an expectation that his playing time would be limited for the next couple months — the team has been sitting him and Markkanen during the fourth quarters of games since the trade deadline.
Undergoing the operation now should ensure that Jackson will be fully healthy in time for training camp in the fall. Utah currently has the sixth-worst record in the league at 18-37.
Post-Deadline Rumors: Morant, JJJ, Bulls, Missi, Celtics
The fact that Ja Morant wasn’t traded at last week’s deadline came as a bit of a surprise to him, according to Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints, who says the Grizzlies weren’t willing to accept a package similar to what Atlanta got for Trae Young.
The Grizzlies talked to the Heat, Timberwolves, and Bucks about Morant, but didn’t come close to making a deal, Azarly writes. League sources tell ClutchPoints that Ryan Rollins was a player Memphis and Milwaukee talked about, but the Grizzlies were averse to taking back Kyle Kuzma and/or Bobby Portis, who are both on multiyear guaranteed contracts.
According to reporting last week, Memphis signaled a willingness to take on long-term salary if it came attached to first-round draft compensation, but there’s no indication the Bucks would’ve put their lone tradable first-rounder on the table for Morant.
The expectation is that the Grizzlies will try to trade Morant again in the summer, and Azarly suggests that the point guard should be able to return from his left elbow injury not long after the All-Star break. As Azarly explains, even though Memphis has pivoted to a full-on rebuild and would benefit from piling up losses down the stretch, both the team and Morant himself would appreciate the opportunity to have the 26-year-old rebuild his trade value with a strong finish to the season.
Here are a few more leftover rumors from last week’s trade deadline:
- In addition to Golden State and Toronto – whose talks with the Grizzlies were previously reported – the Pistons and Hawks also “checked in” on Jaren Jackson Jr. before he was dealt to the Jazz, while the Suns and Hornets also had interest, says Brett Siegel of ClutchPoints. There’s no indication that any of those teams made any real progress toward acquiring Jackson from Memphis.
- The Bulls, who acquired a total of eight second-round picks in their various pre-deadline deals, made an effort to flip some of those second-rounders to the Pelicans last Thursday in a deal for second-year center Yves Missi, Siegel writes. However, New Orleans was holding out for a first-round pick and ended up retaining Missi through the deadline.
- Sources who spoke to Jake Fischer of The Stein Line (Substack link) viewed the Celtics‘ swap of Anfernee Simons for Nikola Vucevic as a “clear indicator” that Boston thinks forward Jayson Tatum will be able to return before the end of the season. Simons’ was the team’s fourth-leading scorer prior to the trade, but would’ve likely seen his role reduced in a rotation that featured a healthy Tatum.
Western Notes: Kerr, Braun, Barnes, Hinson
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr admits that tanking is a major concern for the league, but he doesn’t have any simple solutions, Nick Friedell of The Athletic writes.
“Ironically, the last few years, it seems like it has not been at the forefront like it is this year because of the play-in (tournament),” Kerr said. “More teams felt like they were in it. This year, it’s pronounced just because of the circumstances and where a lot of teams are — injuries, starting rebuilds, that sort of thing. I know the league is really concerned about it, as they should be. It’s not good for the fans, for the league itself. They’re considering everything. It’s a really tough issue.”
Kerr also sees the issue from the perspective of teams jockeying for lottery positions, knowing that one of the top picks in the 2026 draft could be a franchise-altering player.
“The bottom line is you kinda have to get lucky in the lottery,” Kerr said. “It’s what makes this issue so tricky, is that great players — Steph (Curry) and Tim Duncan, Wemby (Victor Wembanyama) — they’re not only team-changing, but they’re franchise-changing, for even beyond the scope of those guys’ careers. And so there’s only a handful of players that can do that, that are that valuable. And so teams are all clamoring for them. Sometimes, you don’t know who they are. Steph was the seventh pick. Giannis (Antetokounmpo) was the (15th) pick. So it’s not always the first couple guys, but more often than not, the first pick has an opportunity to be that guy, and that’s what creates this issue.”
Here’s more from the Western Conference:
- Nuggets guard Christian Braun has appeared in four games since returning from a left ankle sprain. Braun missed nearly two months of action previously before an aborted attempt to come back last month from the same ailment. He played in only three January games before the ankle issue grounded him again and realizes now he wasn’t at full strength last month. “I think the biggest (factor) was, ‘Can I jump in the air?’” he told Bennett Durando of the Denver Post. “Obviously, they do all their tests (on an injury) and they do a really good job, but truthfully, I couldn’t jump. And if everybody has seen me play, I jump off my left leg a ton. So I’m just navigating, like, ‘Before I come back this next time, I need to make sure I can jump. I can run full speed and I can jump.’ It sounds really elementary and really basic, but that’s the truth. The explosion just wasn’t there.”
- Commissioner Adam Silver selected Brandon Ingram to replace Stephen Curry in the All-Star Game. Spurs forward Harrison Barnes felt teammates Stephon Castle and De’Aaron Fox were more worthy candidates. “We’re No. 2 in the West,” Barnes told Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express News. “Teams below us have two All-Stars. I don’t know a case where if you’re talking about having an impact on winning, either of them shouldn’t be selected and/or at least under consideration.”
- Blake Hinson‘s two-way contract with the Jazz is a two-year deal, per Spotrac contributor Keith Smith (Twitter link). The 26-year-old small forward is in the midst of a standout year in the G League, where he’s averaging 21.8 points and 5.8 rebounds with Portland’s affiliate, the Rip City Remix. Hinson signed his new contract on Monday.