Aaron Gordon suffered lacerations to his face and hand from a dog bite on Christmas, according to a statement released by the Nuggets on Wednesday. He will be away from the team while he recovers.
The injuries to Gordon’s shooting hand and face required 21 stitches, according to sources with knowledge of the situation who spoke under condition of anonymity because the information had not been made public by the team.
The team isn’t assigning a timeline to Gordon’s absence. The dog bite did not require any police involvement, and the team did not provide any details surrounding the incident.
“Right now, (Gordon’s absence) is open-ended. We’re not gonna put any pressure on him,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “We need him to heal inside and out. Going through something like that is not something that you come back from easily. That’s something where you have to heal from the physical, but you also have to heal from the mental, just what he kind of went through. So as I told him, we want him back. We know we’re better off with him. But I want to support Aaron Gordon and make sure when he comes back, he’s ready to come back and play at the level we know he’s fully capable of.”
Gordon amassed 16 points and 10 rebounds on 7-of-10 shooting in Denver’s Christmas Day win over the Warriors, before the dog bite. He’s averaging 13.6 points and 6.9 rebounds per game this season, shooting 52.5% from the field and 25% from 3-point range. He has an 8.3 net rating in 28 games, having missed only a small portion of the season so far due to a right heel strain.
Nuggets players Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Peyton Watson said they both found out about the incident Wednesday at practice. The Nuggets had a full off day Tuesday.
“He’s feeling down right now, but I’m gonna reach out to him today and just try to uplift him, make sure he’s good,” Caldwell-Pope said.
In the games Gordon hasn’t played, Malone has started Michael Porter Jr. at the four in his place, while inserting Justin Holiday into the starting lineup. Holiday is averaging 8.5 points in his six starts this season. Porter has hit his stride in recent games, shooting 46.3% from beyond the arc in the last six while registering a career-high four blocks in the Christmas Day win.
“That’s kind of been the story of our season so far, but to our players’ credit, whether it was Jamal (Murray) being out, whether it’s Aaron being out, whoever it is, our guys have stepped up,” Malone said. “And it speaks to the quality of our depth. We have guys that are stepping up and taking advantage of any and all opportunities. … If you’re a team that’s serious about winning a championship, you have to be able to deal with injuries and have people step up. And we’ve been doing that at a high level, I think, for the last five or six years.”
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