Gordon Hayward’s injury reminds us of the sacrifices NBA players make

The most unnerving thing in the minutes following Gordon Hayward’s horrific injury was his face. The new Boston Celtic fractured his ankle and tibia on Tuesday in the NBA season opener, an injury that will almost certainly end his season. But after an initial realization of how serious it was, Hayward was in shock. As doctors hovered around him, his face was blank.

This was not how his night was supposed to go. This was not how any of it was supposed to go.

Hayward has a terrible and painful recovery ahead of him, but that will hopefully happen as smoothly as possible and on schedule. The Boston Celtics are constructed for the future even more than the present, which doesn’t make this injury any easier but shouldn’t disrupt their long-term plans. The NBA had a can’t-look-away offseason only to see its much-hyped opening night marred by a broken leg, but the storylines will soon move on. In the big picture, it may turn out that nothing much is changed.

We shouldn’t let that undersell the sacrifices that players like Hayward make with their lives and their bodies, though. Yes, Hayward accepted these risks, and yes, he has been handsomely compensated for them. His recovery will offer him better health care than most, and he’ll be monitored around the clock. That’s all good news! His personal sacrifice isn’t diminished by all of that, though.

Hayward’s a father of two toddlers. With an injury like his, he may be off his feet for months. His wife, Robyn, must have been watching the game. I can’t imagine watching a loved one’s gruesome injury broadcast and then realizing they’re replaying it.

This was not how any of it was supposed to go. Hayward agonized over his free agency decision last summer, and he ultimately chose Boston. The Celtics were a title contender — as much as any team can be in LeBron James’ conference — and had just taken the No. 1 seed. They had plans to win now with players in their prime, and support them with highly regarded prospects who could push the team’s ceiling even higher. Even if the team was supposed to peak in 2020, they expected a superb season this year as well that would challenge James in Cleveland.

Hayward’s injury shatters that illusion.

Hayward made his decision in part to return to his college coach, Brad Stevens. This must be just as tough on him. Injuries are part of the deal, but not like this. Nobody ever plans to deal with something this severe.

Hayward’s new teammate Kyrie Irving had suffered through a similar thing when Paul George snapped his leg in a Team USA scrimmage. At one point, he had tears in his eyes when speaking to the media. Once again, a new teammate suffered as bad an injury as you could imagine on the court.

LeBron, Kevin Love, Dwyane Wade, and Isaiah Thomas went back to the locker room after the first quarter ended to briefly see Hayward. Thomas was traded from the Celtics a couple months ago, but he had helped recruit Hayward. Hayward was flown back to Boston shortly afterwards to receive local treatment. It’s all a somber reminder that basketball, and sports, demand sacrifices.

The concept of pushing human athleticism to its peak carries the weight of catastrophic failure. Hayward was injured on an errant alley-oop, jumping higher with his 6’8, 230-pound frame than an average human would ever dream was possible, and this time, it just ended the wrong way. This has happened a hundred times, or even a thousand. Hayward has landed awkwardly before, like this instance when he played for the Utah Jazz. He wasn’t injured on this play.

Yet just six minutes into the start of a new chapter in his career, Hayward was laying on the ground in pain, and then suffering from blank-faced shock as the long road back started to dawn on him.

NFL players are realizing the grave realities that CTE and concussions have dealt upon their sport. There are widely covered cases like Junior Seau, who committed suicide in 2012, and lesser ones, like bruising running back Marion Barber who was held for a mental health evaluation three years ago after erratic behavior. Baseball players from the ’90s are suffering from performance enhancing drug use now. The NBA has recently started free heart screenings for retired players after several former players died in their 50s and early 60s.

Even Tuesday morning, hours before Hayward’s tragic injury, we learned more about LeBron James, who has “two scars on the back of his head you can only see up close,” as his GQ profile describes it. James might be the least injury-prone player in the league. He has missed games, but given his hyper-athleticism and airborne playing style, it’s amazing that he has never had a major injury. But even he bares scars, lasting injuries from the profession he chose.

Hayward will hopefully avoid any lasting damage from his ankle injury. Already, there is “cautious optimism” that his bone breaks are clean — meaning a quicker and easier recovery.

But don’t think that he’ll escape this moment without scars, whether physical or mental. That’s the sacrifice he makes for all of this. Every professional athlete, and even those beyond the professional spectrum, has made sacrifices, whether it’s for their body, or for their careers, or for their families.

Not that any of these players would do anything differently. But we shouldn’t blow past their sacrifices in pursuit of a bigger, impersonal picture.