Aaron Gordon, Denver Nuggets, Aaron Gordon injury
Getty
Aaron Gordon #32 of the Denver Nuggets brings the ball up court against the Los Angeles Lakers during the fourth quarter at Ball Arena on January 20, 2026 in Denver, Colorado.
Veteran Denver Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon re-injured his right hamstring during his team’s 102-100 win over the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday.
Gordon, who missed over a month due to a right hamstring strain earlier in the season, aggravated the injury during the second quarter of Friday’s game and did not return. The athletic forward also dealt with a hamstring injury during last year’s playoffs.
The Nuggets were already without Nikola Jokic (knee bone bruise), Jamal Murray (hamstring/hip), Christian Braun (ankle), Cam Johnson (knee), Peyton Watson (ankle) and Jonas Valanciunas (calf) before Gordon left Friday’s game. The team initially deemed him questionable for the second half before ruling him out completely.
As such, it was rather miraculous that they pulled off the win, with Julian Strawther (20 points), Tim Hardaway Jr. (17 points) and Bruce Brown (15 points) leading the way.
Aaron Gordon Injury Update
Earlier in the season, Gordon suffered a grade 2 hamstring strain during the Nov. 21 contest against the Houston Rockets. He would be sidelined until the Jan. 4 clash against the Boston Celtics, the same game that also saw Braun return from his ankle sprain. However, Braun lasted only three games before aggravating his injury.
After Friday’s setback, Nuggets head coach David Adelman said Gordon was “optimistic” that his hamstring injury was not as bad as the one earlier in the season. However, he said a return timeline won’t be determined until further testing.
“I feel for him,” Adelman said of Gordon, via Bennett Durando of The Denver Post.
“He’s optimistic it’s not as bad as it was, the last one. But we won’t know until we get it actually tested.”
Nuggets Injury Woes
Adelman previously admitted that the Nuggets rushed Braun back from his ankle injury. He hinted at something similar on Friday, while highlighting that Gordon played nearly 34 minutes in Thursday’s 107-97 win over the Washington Wizards in the first night of a back-to-back before the Bucks clash.
“It’s just the stress test. That’s what they go by,” Adelman said of Gordon’s injury.
“And they look at his body and how it responded to yesterday. The response was good. And let’s just be honest. This is not an exact science. These injuries, they can come back any time. Aaron’s had different ones that are similar, the soft tissue stuff. … Nobody made a mistake with him playing. You can only do what you can do. And we have the best people in the world making decisions. They believed that the stress test showed he was good to go. So he did.”
The injury-ravaged Nuggets have already seen Jokic miss 14 games, Gordon 23, Braun 32, Cameron Johnson 18 and Valanciunas another 12 games. Even Jamal Murray has missed five games. It’s somewhat of a miracle that Adelman’s team has maintained a record of 31-15, while consolidating the third seed in the West with Friday’s win.
The good news is that a fully healthy Nuggets team could take the floor after the All-Star break, when Jokic, Braun and Johsnon are expected to return. Now, it remains to be seen if Gordon would be sideliend for an extended period.