After the way they made an example of him, I think it will be a while before anyone else within the organization flaps their lips to the media. The guy had a long history with both Olshey and Kaman, but he crossed a line and paid the price. It was kind of a weird situation - almost like he wanted to get fired. Too bad, he was actually a decent big man coach. BNM
Seems to me it's pretty likely Nurk plays game 1. Good on the FO for keeping their lips sealed till game time.
As long as the risk for aggravating the injury is minimal, I hope he plays, even if he's not 100%. I think even a 75%+ Nurkic will be an asset and we may at least get a glimpse of the team we saw when Nurkic was healthy. If there's more than about 1% chance of re-injury/making it worse, just sit him. This series isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things. I most care about him being in pristine shape for next season, when the team might chase 50 wins.
As long as they wait till the last possible moment and he busts out of the locker room like Mr. T in the A team.... I am cool with playing him.
We didn't find out today if he was playing. But I'm confident we would have found out today if he wasn't.
Stotts's is about as tight lipped as you can be. But he is avoiding answering any sort of questions about Nurkic even practicing. Makes me think the whole thing is a smokescreen.
The reporter asked Jusif what the results of his x-rays yesterday were and his response was 'I don't know, I'm still waiting on the doc to find out what's going on.' Either they have the worlds slowest doctors, or I think they know more than they're letting on, right, Captain obvious? I kind of think it's looking like he'll play. While I have you here, how do you think Lillard's gonna do in game 1?
Also interesting that he evidently was supposed to get reevaluted today, but he had an X-ray on Wednesday. My guess is they've known his status the whole time and this was a planned "we'll see on Sunday" scenario.
