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SALT LAKE CITY — As soon as Joe Ingles collapsed to the floor, all the narratives surrounding Ingles' season felt unimportant.
The dwindling 3-point percentage? Suddenly, irrelevant. The trade scenarios? Downright sacrilegious.
On Monday, the results from the MRI on Ingles' left knee confirmed what the team had feared: The eight-year forward had suffered an ACL tear with no other structural damage.
He'll be out "indefinitely with surgery," which will take place in the next few weeks. It's the final year of Ingles' deal with the Jazz. And who knows where he and the Jazz go from here. Does Utah re-sign him to a smaller deal? Does Ingles go and play somewhere else, leaving the only team he's played in an NBA game for in his near decade in the league? Does he retire?
Everything could be on the table.
"He's one of those guys you can put in any situation and he'll make the best of it," Rudy Gay said.
Funny, the exact player the Jazz would need to help overcome an injury to Ingles is, well, Ingles — strange how the world works.
He could pop off a joke to keep everyone light in the locker room, run a couple pick and rolls to settle the team down, or annoy half the other team with some ferocious trash talk to fire his own teammates up.
His sarcastic sense of humor could bring light to even the darkest days.
"It's not even about basketball. Just having him in the locker room is really good for us," Gay said.
Replacing Ingles' presence in the locker room is practically impossible. The demeanor, the jokes, the experience. He was one of the guys that seemed to connect everyone together on the team. He helped bridge gaps between teammates — which is why he was so easily able to joke about the reportedly "unsalvageable" relationship between Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert.
It's no surprise the team sought him out during halftime on Sunday to try and give encouraging words.
"You let him know that you love him and believe in him and all that. … Just tell him to keep his head up," Mike Conley said.
Ingles was usually the best one for that job — and he's done that for a while.
He was there in the early days of Snyder's tenure helping bring along a young roster. He went from Clippers' cast off to a playoff starter and famously outplayed Paul George in a series win.
He's consistently been among the best shooters in the world, and his pass fake is stuff of legend. He played any role whether that was picking up the slack when Gordon Hayward left or coming off the bench when the Jazz signed Bojan Bogdanovic.
He's done all that while looking like a "teacher" or a "janitor" or any other career that wasn't a professional athlete.
So where do the Jazz go from here?
"What Joe brings to our team — the intangibles, his playmaking, his ability to find guys, the ability to space the floor, his high IQ — it's tough to replace a guy like that," Conley said.
The window for the Jazz to add a player via the Disabled Player Exception ended on January 15. That means the Jazz will have to fill Ingles' 25 minutes with guys already on the roster.
It seems likely Danuel House Jr. will now be signed for the rest of the season. Eric Paschall has shown well over the last month, but doesn't have the same play creation as Ingles. Trent Forrest and Jared Butler could see an uptick in minutes if the Jazz need some additional ball handling. Elijah Hughes may be ready for a bigger role, too.
"We love Joe," Gay said. "We love what he does on the court. You hate to see that happen, and feel for him and want him to be out there and play with us. But business wise, we gotta find ways to win without him."
Ingles had taken a step back this season, but his injury gave a new appreciation of just how tough that could be.
