Will Gordon Hayward play in Charlotte Hornets opener? He offered an update Friday
Charlotte Hornets forward Gordon Hayward tested his fractured right pinkie finger Friday with some shooting and ball-handling.
While Hayward won’t play in Saturday’s final preseason game against the Orlando Magic, he believes he has a shot at playing in the season opener Wednesday at the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“Certainly, I’m going to be doing everything I can to be ready for the opener,” Hayward told reporters Friday. “That’s working around the clock to get there.”
Hayward was diagnosed with an avulsion fracture at the base of his right pinkie finger. Despite the injury, he traveled with the Hornets for the last two preseason games against the Orlando Magic.
Hayward is not expected to need corrective surgery. An avulsion fracture is when a small chunk of bone attached to a tendon or ligament was pulled away from the main part of the bone. Hayward said his ability to play is now essentially dependent on the level of pain and how effective he can be with the injury on his dominant hand.
“During the dribbling and shooting today, it’s obviously a little tender. It is a fracture. I’ll have to work through that,” Hayward said. “A lot of it is just pain management.”
Hayward was a major free-agent acquisition for the Hornets this off-season. He signed a four-year, $120 million contract to play in Charlotte, via a sign-and-trade with the Boston Celtics. Hayward projects as a long-term starter at small forward and the Hornets’ go-to player on offense as both a scorer and facilitator.
Hayward isn’t positive when he suffered the injury, but he thinks it was in the first half Monday when he had contact in the lane with Toronto Raptors center Aron Baynes. Hayward felt some pain and iced his hand when he was on the bench Monday night, but didn’t initially view it as serious.
“I thought it was just a bruise or whatever,” Hayward said. “The next day we did images and saw what we saw.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 2:58 PM.
