Hornets' Gordon Hayward suffers fractured finger during preseason game, listed as day-to-day

Hayward has had a string of bad luck with injuries, though this one thankfully doesn't appear to be too serious

Over the first seven seasons of his career, Gordon Hayward was something of an iron man, missing just 42 regular-season games during that span. Since then, however, starting with his horrific leg injury on opening night in 2017, he's seemingly been cursed by the injury gods. 

He missed all of that first season with the Celtics, worked his way back through a dismal 2019-20 campaign, during which he struggled to find his old form. And then, as soon as he did early last season, he was again dealt multiple blows. First, he broke his hand, and later he suffered a nasty sprained ankle in the playoffs. 

Even getting out of Boston hasn't helped. On Wednesday, the Charlotte Hornets announced that Hayward suffered a fractured finger. Via the team's press release:

The Charlotte Hornets announced today Hornets forward Gordon Hayward sustained an avulsion fracture of his right fifth metacarpal during the team's preseason exhibition against the Toronto Raptors on Dec. 14. Hayward will miss Thursday's preseason game at Orlando on Dec. 17 and will be listed as day-to-day moving forward.

Thankfully this particular incident doesn't seem to be too serious, as he remains day-to-day. It's not clear when exactly he'll be back, though if the team was expecting him to miss a long period they would have said so in its announcement. 

Still, even if he should be back on the court shortly, this isn't the way Hayward or the Hornets would have wanted to start this partnership. They signed him to a massive four-year, $120 million contract in one of the most surprising moves of free agency, and one of the biggest criticisms was wondering why they gave that much money to a guy who hadn't proven he could stay on the court. Almost immediately those fears were proven correct.