By Antigoni Zachari / info@eurohoops.net
A wrist injury has kept Portland Trail Blazers big man Jusuf Nurkic off the court for quite some time and while he is on the road to recovery, he uses his time off to benefit those in need back in his home, Bosnia.
The “Bosnian beast” suffered a wrist injury early in 2021 after playing 12 games this season and underwent surgery later on and as he mentions on ESPN’s The Jump, he expects to be back in form “in a week or two”.
“Wrist is doing great. Almost there. Just need to make sure I’m not doing shortcuts”, said Nurkic who is not resting during this time.
As ‘The Jump’ further points out, Nurkic has been using this time to offer a helping hand to the Bosnian community, that struggles in times of COVID-19 crisis, through several donations. Some of these include $50,000 worth of PPE kits to hospitals and $40,000 to help rebuild the roof at the largest hospital near his hometown.
The 26-year-old Blazers star has also contributed to the construction of homes for three single mothers and families, has donated 5,000 food packages helping 12,000 people, while he has also donated mammogram machines to Bosnian hospitals.
Nurkic grew up during the times of the Bosnian War and never forgets his duty to give back to his community in whichever way possible.
“It was just tough. No chance, no opportunities” Nurkic mentioned when recalling the war. “For me personally, I will invest my money. Time to figure out the best way we can support the kids growing up. There’s a lot of poor people in Bosnia that only have one meal a day, which is insane. How much money countries and governments get… For me, as an individual, you can change and impact people’s lives”, he said.
Check out the entire portion of his interview below: