How does Gordon Heyward's injury impact not only this season, but his career?

What happened to Gordon Heyward last night was gruesome. On a play you would see multiple times a game and probably hundreds of times throughout the course of the season, it's a terribly unlucky occurrence. Just extremely tough luck on such a routine play.

To the Celtics, this is devastating. Not only did you spend top dollar to bring Heyward into Boston, removing many parts of their roster to make way for not only him, but Kyrie Irving. Now, the team is left with a huge hole in the middle of their team and their production. With one of the youngest rosters in the NBA, there’s no one on this team that can produce to the level of what Heyward was going to bring. It devastates the Celtics’ chances of making it deep into the playoffs, probably their chances at earning the top seed in the East and leaves them wondering “Is this team good enough to compete without Heyward?” That’s just my two cents on Heyward’s injury in relation to the Celtics’ season.

What does this do for Heyward’s career however?

I wouldn’t call Heyward soft. He’s a tough competitor, great basketball player and has come a long way since his days at Butler. But analyze Heyward’s personality for a moment. He’s a doubter and worrier. He didn’t want to go far away from his family when he went off to college, wanting to always be close to his parents. He doubted himself a lot while playing for Butler (often times Stevens instilled confidence in Heyward. There are multiple stories out there on their relationship and how Stevens turned Heyward into the guy he is today). He always has looked towards others to make decisions. He’s a quiet, family first guy that that stands in the corner at parties. He loves his video games, once saying “I just want to play video games” in a press conference, competed in Halo tournaments for cash prizes while in college and even skipped out on school dances in high school to play Halo in his basement (look this stuff up I’m not making it up). Where all of this is heading is towards Heyward’s personality. Is he one to come back from this injury as if nothing had changed or is he one to always have that doubt in the back of his mind: will this cut to the basket affect my ankle? Can this potentially impact not only this season, but Heyward’s mind going forward? I do not doubt Heyward as a competitor. He’s extremely competitive. But to some people, it’s a factor. I know myself, if this happened to me, it would take years for me to fully accept playing basketball without any restrictions, not just physically but mentally.

And a little Red Sox spin on the matter because I love my Red Sox.

If Dave Dombrowski truly believes that a manager makes no difference on the performance of a team, take a look at Brad Stevens. Although in basketball, a coach is heavily involved in the play on the court due to the creation of plays, the ability to call timeouts when needed, defensive schemes, it goes on, all of that was icing on the cake as to what Stevens did with that team last night. Down 54-38 going into the halftime and clearly shaken by Heyward’s injury, Stevens rallied the troops to 33-18 third quarter and pulled them right back into the game, the lead and the positioning to win the game with the very last shot. There’s something to be said about the impact a manager has on their team. The Red Sox don’t need a guy that can take hits from the media, win games and be a good source of communication to the General Manager. They need a guy that can rally the troops on any given night as how Stevens did last night.