Utah Jazz forward Vince Williams Jr. has suffered a torn left ACL and will undergo season-ending surgery, league sources told ClutchPoints on Tuesday. An MRI Tuesday morning confirmed Utah's initial fears, and Williams will spend most of the upcoming offseason recovering from this major knee injury.
The injury occurred on Monday night, when the Jazz were on the road to face the Houston Rockets. With about nine minutes left in the second quarter, Williams was running alongside Terry Eason after Utah turned the ball over. In transition, Eason appeared to intentionally bump Williams to get a better position for a 2-on-1 opportunity.
Then Williams' right knee buckled under him and moved inward. He immediately fell to the ground, holding his right knee in front of the jazz bench. Will Hardy was angry at the officials for not making the call, as Eason's physical position with Williams in the game could have easily been considered an offensive foul.
Williams, who was in obvious pain, did not put any weight on his leg as Jazz staff members carried him to the locker room.
According to the Deseret News, after the game, Eason went to the Jazz locker room and checked on Williams, and said he had great "respect" for him and had no "intention" to injure him. Eason apologized for the unfortunate injury and clarified that he had no intention of trying to hurt Williams during the game.
"Not feeling very good," Hardy said succinctly in his postgame comments. "That's not basketball."
Williams was traded to the Jazz on February 3 in an eight-player deal with the Memphis Grizzlies that also sent All-Star big man Jaren Jackson Jr. to Salt Lake City. Jackson was recently signed off by the Jazz and is expected to miss the remainder of the 2025-26 NBA season after undergoing surgery to remove a localized pigmented villonodular synovitis (PVNS) growth in his left knee.
In six games with the Jazz, Williams averaged 4.7 points and 3.2 rebounds in approximately 14.0 minutes per game. This season, he has shot 35.3 percent from the floor and 31.1 percent from 3-point range with Memphis and Utah.
