{"id":670430,"date":"2026-03-21T09:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/670430\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T09:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:00:10","slug":"ivica-zubac-to-miss-rest-of-season-with-fractured-rib","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/670430\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivica Zubac To Miss Rest Of Season With Fractured Rib"},"content":{"rendered":"

4:55 pm:\u00a0The Pacers have officially confirmed Zubac\u2019s injury in a press release<\/a>. As expected the 29-year-old big man will miss the rest of the season. He\u2019s expected to make a full recovery, per the team.<\/p>\n

\"\"10:02 am: Pacers center Ivica Zubac<\/a> sustained a fractured rib in Wednesday\u2019s loss to Portland, according to Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star (Twitter link<\/a>), who reports that Zubac will sit out the rest of the season while he recovers from the injury.<\/p>\n

Zubac left Wednesday\u2019s game early<\/a>, though his exit happened after he was on the wrong end of a Donovan Clingan<\/a> elbow, and the head contusion he suffered on that play was the ailment he discussed during his post-game media session. It\u2019s unclear when the rib fracture occurred.<\/p>\n

Zubac, who was traded from the Clippers to Indiana at February\u2019s deadline, was still recovering from a left ankle sprain at the time of the deal and didn\u2019t make his Pacers debut until last week. He has been limited to just 48 total appearances this season due to various health issues.<\/p>\n

In his five games as Indiana\u2019s starting center \u2013 all losses \u2013 Zubac averaged 11.6 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 1.8 assists in 23.6 minutes per contest. His full-season averages were 14.1 PPG, 10.6 RPG, and 2.2 APG in 30.1 MPG.<\/p>\n

Although Zubac was able to suit up for a few games as a Pacer this season, the team traded for him with an eye toward 2026\/27 and beyond. With a healthy Zubac in the middle and star point guard Tyrese Haliburton<\/a> back from his Achilles tear, Indiana is hopeful that it will once again become a title contender after coming within one win of a championship last June.<\/p>\n

With Zubac unavailable, big man Jay Huff<\/a> figures to reclaim a spot in the starting lineup. He started 15 of 16 games at the five between the start of February and Zubac\u2019s debut. Reserve center Micah Potter<\/a>, who lost his rotation spot with Zubac healthy, will likely resume playing regular minutes once he\u2019s healthy. He was inactive on Tuesday and Wednesday due to a right triceps strain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"4:55 pm:\u00a0The Pacers have officially confirmed Zubac\u2019s injury in a press release. As expected the 29-year-old big man…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,113,126,3866,532,4960,32137,6,114],"class_list":["post-670430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indiana-pacers","tag-basketball","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-indianapacers","tag-ivica-zubac","tag-jay-huff","tag-micah-potter","tag-nba","tag-pacers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116266351927008372","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670430","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=670430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}