Utah Jazz Center Jusuf Nurkić to Miss at Least Four Weeks With Toe Injury

The short version: Utah's season has not started, and the Jazz are already down their starting center. Jusuf Nurkić suffered a partial plantar plate tear in the second toe of his right foot during the preseason opener against the Denver Nuggets on October 4, and the Jazz confirmed on October 7 that he will be sidelined for at least four weeks and reevaluated at that point. The injury, first reported by NBA insider Chris Haynes, means Utah opens the regular season on October 21 in Memphis without the veteran big man who anchored its frontcourt last season — and it pushed the Jazz to add another center, Mohamed Wague, the very next day.

How it happened

Nurkić started the preseason opener against Denver — the franchise that drafted him and the first of his five NBA stops — but his night lasted 11 minutes. In that short stint he still managed four points, five rebounds, four assists, a steal and a block as Utah won the game 109-97 in Boulder. The toe injury did not look season-altering in the moment, but the days that followed told the story: Nurkić did not take part in the team's open practice on Monday, and he sat out Tuesday's preseason rematch with the Nuggets, which Utah lost 117-106. By Wednesday evening the diagnosis was public, and the Jazz confirmed both how the injury happened — in Sunday's game — and the four-week reevaluation timeline.

A plantar plate tear is an awkward injury for a 6-foot-11, 290-pound center. The plantar plate sits under the ball of the foot and stabilizes the toe; for a player whose game is built on carving out space, sealing defenders and landing after rebounds, pushing off that foot is not optional. Four weeks is a reevaluation date, not a guaranteed return date, and the Jazz have said nothing that suggests they intend to rush the 32-year-old back before the foot can handle his frame.

What Utah loses

Nurkić became Utah's primary starting center last season almost by necessity. Walker Kessler, the young rim protector the position was supposed to belong to, missed nearly the entire 2025-26 season with a labral tear in his left shoulder, and Nurkić — acquired from Charlotte in the summer of 2025 — stepped into 36 starts across 41 appearances. He averaged 10.9 points, 10.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists in 26.4 minutes a night while shooting 50.3 percent from the field, numbers that made him one of the league's better passing centers and, as theScore noted, the first player in Jazz franchise history to record three consecutive triple-doubles.

His own availability was hardly spotless, either. Nurkić missed 41 games last season, including the final 27 after surgery for a deviated septum, so Utah's front office already knew the risks when it re-signed him in late June to a two-year, $22 million contract — $11.5 million this season, declining to $10.5 million in 2027-28. The bet was that even 50 or 60 games of Nurkić's size, screening and passing were worth more to a young roster than the open market offered. That bet now gets tested in the season's first month instead of later in the year.

The timeline

Counting from the October 7 confirmation, a four-week absence runs through at least the first eight regular-season games, a stretch that reporting has pegged from October 21 through November 4. Utah opens at the Memphis Grizzlies at FedExForum on October 21, and every game on that early slate was drawn up with Nurkić as the starting five. A reevaluation in early November will decide whether he is cleared to ramp up or whether the absence stretches toward Thanksgiving. For a Jazz team that finished 22-60 last season and is trying to show its young core can defend and rebound at a respectable level, losing its most physical interior presence for the opening weeks is a real problem, even if it is not a catastrophic one.

Who fills the minutes

The first answer is already on the roster. Jaxson Hayes, the eight-year veteran who signed a two-year deal with Utah this summer after stops in New Orleans and Los Angeles, started in Nurkić's place in Tuesday's game against Denver and profiles as the primary option in the middle until Nurkić returns. Behind him, the Jazz can piece the position together: Kyle Filipowski brings size and skill, Mo Bamba re-signed this summer on a partially guaranteed deal, and Jaren Jackson Jr. has extensive experience sliding to center from his time in Memphis. Utah also closed its preseason slate with a 119-109 win over San Antonio on Monday night, with Nurkić again not playing — an early look at the by-committee approach the coaching staff will lean on.

The Wague signing

Utah moved quickly to add depth, announcing on October 8 that it had signed Mohamed Wague. The 6-foot-10 forward-center is a Bronx native who started his college career at a junior college in Pennsylvania and went on to play at West Virginia, Alabama and Oklahoma from 2022 to 2025. As a senior starter at Oklahoma he averaged 6.9 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 22.4 minutes per game, and Jazz public relations noted his 55 total blocks ranked fourth in the SEC. He also represented Mali's senior national team at the 2025 FIBA AfroBasket, playing in five games on a silver-medal run, and he owns a reported 7-foot-4 wingspan.

Wague went undrafted in June, and the reporting around the signing is clear-eyed about what it likely is: Hoops Rumors notes the deal is almost certainly a non-guaranteed contract with Exhibit 10 language, which would make Wague eligible for a bonus of up to $91,000 if he is waived before the season and spends at least 60 days with the Salt Lake City Stars, Utah's G League affiliate. Utah had an open spot on its 21-man preseason roster, so no corresponding move was needed. In other words, Wague is a developmental bet with real shot-blocking tools — not a Nurkić replacement — but in a month where the Jazz are short on healthy size, even camp bodies matter.

What it means

For Utah, the stakes are modest but real. This is not a contender losing a star in May; it is a rebuilding team losing its one proven, bruising center for the first few weeks of an 82-game season, a year after injuries gutted the same position. The opportunity cuts the other way for Hayes, Filipowski and the rest of the committee: starting-center minutes in October are auditions, and somebody in that group is going to play his way into a bigger role. The Jazz will get Nurkić back — the only question the next four weeks answer is how much ground they give up, and who steps into it, while they wait. Follow the rest of our Utah coverage in the Local News hub and on the Previously sports desk.