The Utah Jazz were (and, I guess, currently are) the fourth seed in the Western Conference before the NBA shutdown and went on an indefinite hiatus that is still ongoing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the plans for a potential NBA restart are still fuzzy, there’s a chance that if able the league will resume play with a brief run of games before starting the playoffs with seeding as is. That means the Jazz would be a top-4 team in the West with homecourt for the first round, but if the season does start back up, they’ll be without a key contributor.
Bojan Bogdanovic will apparently have wrist surgery that will end his 2019-20 season and cause him to miss the playoffs, should they happen, per a report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Bogdanovic injured wrist in January and played in pain throughout season. The discomfort/injury emerged again during shutdown, sources said. Decision for surgery makes sense to protect him and franchise for long-term. He signed a four-year, $73M deal last summer. https://t.co/OwLTeYHWgO
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 18, 2020
It’s a major blow to the Jazz, as Bogdanovic was their second leading scorer on the season, averaging 20.2 points per game and shooting a robust 41.4 percent from three-point range. The injury had apparently lingered since January and with the uncertainty facing this season, Bogdanovic made the choice to do what’s best for the longterm and have surgery. The hope is that he can return to full form by next season, whenever that may start, and the Jazz can build on what was a solid, even if at times frustrating, 2019-20 campaign.