The Utah Jazz have lost Ed Davis for at least four weeks after he broke his left fibula on Thursday night. Despite not being a starter, this injury may hurt the Jazz in unexpected ways.
Thursday night, despite winning against the Sacramento Kings, the Utah Jazz suffered perhaps the greatest loss of the evening, losing backup center Ed Davis for the immediate future as he suffered a fractured left fibula.
The following day, Davis was examined by the Jazz medical staff through both X-rays and MRI, which revealed the fracture. He will be evaluated again by the team in four weeks, at which point further updates regarding his status and future availability will be given.
The loss of Davis greatly hurts a Jazz team that hopes to contend for the top seed in a deep Western Conference. Any loss at all to a team that prided itself on its depth undercuts what they hoped would help set them apart from other, more star-heavy teams. While the Jazz still have reliable enough backup options in the frontcourt with Jeff Green and Royce O’Neale, both of them prefer to hang out on the perimeter and will not be able to replace Davis’ stellar rebounding abilities and reliable post defense.
Davis’ absence will put a greater pressure on third-year player Tony Bradley to step up as Rudy Gobert‘s backup. It will be a trial by fire for Bradley, who has only played in 12 NBA games up to this point. While his per 36 stats of 24 points and 12 rebounds on 100 percent shooting this season look unbelievably phenomenal, he has actually only played in 12 minutes over three games so far this year. Whether or not he will be able to actually contribute good minutes and fill in for Davis is a completely open question.
The Jazz as a whole may have to learn to play a bit differently if Bradley is not a reliable option as the backup center. They’d then have to lean on Green or O’Neale at the 5. Davis of course plays differently from Gobert, not being as adept at being the roll man in the pick-and-roll or as tremendous a defender, but he at least played a similar enough style so that there was a certain internal consistency when he was on the floor. However, if Bradley is not able to replicate Davis’ reliability as a backup, then it’s possible the Jazz will have to relearn how to play, at least for a handful of minutes per game.
The Jazz are certainly lucky that none of their starters suffered an injury, but they are a team that is successful in large part because of their depth and their defense, and Davis is a major key to their defensive success when Gobert is not on the floor.
Utah is 4-2 despite only having the 25th-best offense in the league because they can make up for their relative lack of offensive firepower by stifling their opponents’ ability to score, currently having the second-best defense in the NBA. It’s not like Davis is the sole thing making the Jazz defense great, but there are concerns that this injury may ask more of Gobert, wearing him down earlier in the season than Utah fans would hope.
The Utah Jazz are not in danger of falling out of the playoff picture or anything as dire as that in these next 4-6 weeks without Davis. However, considering how tight the race for home-court advantage in the West is certain to be, there’s almost no margin for error for teams like the Jazz, who are hoping to find themselves with a top-four record in the conference. Losing a game here or there, or overexerting themselves due to the absences of Davis and Dante Exum, who has yet to play a game this season due to a knee injury, may not seem like a big deal in the moment, but could have long-term ramifications depending on how the rest of the season plays out.