Maybe the most telling thing about how NBA fans feel about Gordon Hayward is the lack of memes making fun of his injury on the league’s opening night, with meme makers focusing their funny bones on other players and events.
The game between the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers lost a bit of allure after Hayward left with his gruesome ankle injury. It did allow meme makers to joke about Kyrie Irving losing, and a little bit about that patting marathon Kyrie and LeBron James had at the end of the game.
The other big event wasn’t even on a team that’s playing. Bobby Portis punched Nikola Mirotic, breaking a bone in his face, and got suspended for 8 games by the team. Reports from Chicago suggest that Mirotic was actually the aggressor in this case. Portis just finished it.
And the Rockets beat the Warriors. Surprisingly, it didn’t lead to a lot of Warriors jokes. Maybe the fact that the whole difference was less than 0.1 seconds more for Durant to release the ball. The Warriors lost the season opener last year too. We saw how that turned out.