{"id":622436,"date":"2026-02-24T18:47:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T18:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/622436\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T18:47:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T18:47:17","slug":"jusuf-nurkic-out-for-the-season-after-nose-surgery-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/622436\/","title":{"rendered":"Jusuf Nurki\u0107, out for the season after nose surgery \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2014 Utah Jazz center Jusuf Nurki\u0107 will miss the rest of the season after undergoing nasal surgery on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Team sources confirmed the news after it was first reported on Monday night by Chris Haynes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s had a really bad deviated septum, he\u2019s gotten hit in the face four or five times this year,\u201d Jazz coach Will Hardy said. \u201cHis recent sickness has pushed that forward. It\u2019s something that he\u2019s needed to get done for a while now, so he\u2019s going to get that taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t really stress enough how patient he was with me. Through my whole career, I didn\u2019t have a coach like that. I\u2019ve been in some rough spots through my career, but never had that support like he does for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Jusuf Nurki\u0107 on Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy<\/p>\n

Over the course of the season with the Jazz, Nurki\u0107 has played a number of roles and has done so with a lot of success<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He came in expecting to be a bit of a veteran mentor and play backup to Walker Kessler. Shortly after the season began, Kessler had season-ending shoulder surgery<\/a> and that pushed Nurki\u0107 into a much larger role as a mentor and as a starter.<\/p>\n

As the season progressed he helped stabalize the Jazz\u2019s young roster and especially give the young guards a seasoned presence to play off of. Additionally, his work as a facilitating five has given Hardy a lot to think about in terms of what is possible with the rest of the roster in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis passing has been elite this year,\u201d Hardy said. \u201cHis ability to fight for space, offensively, and get his catch, allows us to put the ball in a variety of places. He\u2019s allowed us to continue to tinker with some of our off-ball actions … and we\u2019ve done a couple of things this year that we haven\u2019t done in the past, and he\u2019s allowed us to believe in it because of some of the passes that he\u2019s made and reads he\u2019s made.\u201d<\/p>\n

The success of Nurki\u0107\u2019s season, that included a stretch of games in which he had three consecutive triple-doubles, had many wondering if the Jazz would look to flip him at the trade deadline. But when that didn\u2019t happen, the narrative turned to what would happen at the end of the year.<\/p>\n

With news that Nurki\u0107\u2019s season is finished, it\u2019s time to wonder what will become of the Bosnian big man.<\/p>\n

The choices are pretty simple. He can either cash in on a successful season by signing a deal elsewhere, or he can re-sign with the Jazz \u2014 assuming the Jazz would want to re-sign him.<\/p>\n

There are many in the Jazz organization that would like to see Nurki\u0107 return next season, albeit on a smaller, more manageable salary, and with the understanding that he would again be slated to be Kessler\u2019s backup (if the Jazz retain Kessler, who is entering restricted free agency).<\/p>\n

Nurki\u0107 has many times expressed how much he\u2019s enjoyed the season with the Jazz. He has been quick to extol the Jazz as an organization and has been impressed with how they welcomed him and how they\u2019ve treated him. The same goes for his feelings about Hardy. <\/p>\n

Numerous times he\u2019s explained feeling disillusioned over the last couple of years, but then felt like he was able to level with and really talk about things with Hardy in a way that he hadn\u2019t experienced with a coach previously.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t really stress enough how patient he was with me,\u201d Nurki\u0107 said of Hardy back in December. \u201cThrough my whole career, I didn\u2019t have a coach like that. I\u2019ve been in some rough spots through my career, but never had that support like he does for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the Jazz are willing, it\u2019s just going to come down to what Nurki\u0107 wants. There could be a bigger pay day waiting for him with another team, but there could be some stability and a build toward something exciting if he were to stay with the Jazz.<\/p>\n

\"\"Utah Jazz forward Kevin Love, right, talks with center Jusuf Nurki\u0107 during a game against the Boston Celtics held at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 Utah Jazz center Jusuf Nurki\u0107 will miss the rest of the season after undergoing nasal surgery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3785],"tags":[7,423,6,1111,422,427,3972],"class_list":{"0":"post-622436","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-jazz","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-jazz","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-news-feed-local","12":"tag-utah","13":"tag-utah-jazz","14":"tag-utahjazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116127101981566559","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}