The Brooklyn Nets went on the road for their season opener to take on the Indiana Pacers in what turned out to be a historically high scoring affair. Unfortunately, the team lost starting point guard Jeremy Lin in the fourth quarter of their 140-131 loss and learned the true extent of his injury today. The opening of the 2017-18 season has been a rough one, as the league has already lost newly minted Boston Celtics star Gordon Hayward.

What is Lin's injury?

In the fourth quarter, Jeremy Lin landed awkwardly on his right leg as he was driving to the basket and proceeded to crumple to the ground in pain.

His immediately emotional reaction indicated that he knew the injury was serious as he slammed the court in frustration and looked to be close to tears before being helped off of the court by trainers.

The Brooklyn Nets announced today that medical tests revealed that Lin has a ruptured patellar tendon in his right knee and is expected to miss the rest of the 2017-18 season. This comes off of Lin having missed the majority of his first season with the Nets due to a bothersome left hamstring injury.

Chance at dynamic backcourt lost

In the 36 games that Jeremy Lin played in last season, the Nets were 13-23 (.361), compared to the putrid 7-39 (.152) record they had without him.

When Lin came back at the end of last season, he was able to play in 24 of the team's final 26 games. The Nets posted a respectable 10-14 record in that span.

In the offseason, the Nets acquired the 21-year-old D'Angelo Russell from the Lakers by giving up Brook Lopez. The move was made in the hopes of giving the team a young centerpiece to build around that would be their point guard of the future.

In the meantime, the team wanted to pair him up with Lin to create a dynamic backcourt duo that would be able to excite fans and give them something to look forward to.

Now it is Russell's team

With Lin's season over, it is likely that the team will move D'Angelo Russell from shooting guard to point guard and probably have Allen Crabbe take over Russell's role. Russell will now have to lead a downtrodden Nets team that has gone 41-123 over the last two seasons by himself and prove that he has what it takes to be truly led the team and be that franchise player without Lin.

While the team lost their season opener, Russell at least got off to a good start last night, dropping 30 points, five assists, three rebounds and a steal. He also shot 12-22 from the field and made four of eight three-point attempts. This was the fifth game of his career he scored at least 30 points, doing so twice in his rookie season and twice last year.
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