MCL is the best case scenario (if that's what it is) - it has a good blood supply and good healing potential. Even in the worst case scenario (a grade III sprain - where there's a complete tear of the ligament, i.e. where it's torn in two) it is very rare to need to reconstruct it surgically - maybe 2-3% likelihood. Yes, a player with a MCL could play in a brace and come back sooner (although this is not nearly as common in basketball as football). Pain is generally the rate limiting step. As soon as the athlete has minimal pain and can cut without pain or instability they can play. It would be somewhat similar in that regard to Tre Jones' AC separation.
Do we as college basketball fans really want to deal with this? At this point I'm completely torn on whether I want Zion to come back this year. I'm mean the part of me that's a Duke fan want him to be back desperately, but if he does I'm going to be holding my breath every time he goes up on one of his jumps fearing that he might land wrong and hurt his knee again. It's so unfair to him and his family if he gets hurt, and it's so unfair to us as Duke fans because the amount of guilt we would feel in that scenario for asking him to comeback would be hard to stomach.
I just want the whole thing to go away. The NBA needs to change this rule.
Nike is getting absolutely slaughtered on Twitter....lot of funny memes....
Even if we suppose that duke would have to play EVERY game without knowing Zion wouldn't play, and thus not be able to game plan, duke played defense 19 points better than national average today, and offense 10 points worse. That put them at about a +9 AdjEM, or ~75. They would have had to be about 10-12 points better to be top 20. Do I think preparation is worth 10-12 points? I mean we did lose to cuse and then come back and beat UVA without our point guard?
I think the answer is probably "yes," but I don't think it's so cut and dry. I suppose we'll find out on saturday what kind of schemes K can draw up.
1200. DDMF.
I don't know how much stock I put in a one game sample. In the second half of the FSU game (also without Zion), we put up a 1.41 adjusted oRtg.
I mean, we still have the #1 and #2 2018 recruits (Zion was #4, amazingly), plus a PG who was #13, plus a junior center who was #11 out of high school. Plus another top 35 recruit (Javin) and two wings who are ACC caliber players. Sounds like at least a top 10 team to me.
Given that we know we're a 122 team with zion, we can use that as a pretty reasonable upper bound WITHOUT zion...unless we think there is a chance we actually ARE a better offensive team without zion...which I don't think is a particularly reasonable assumption.
So the best we can say is that our intrinsic offense without zion is bounded between 122 and 94 (unless you think we're actually WORSE than that). Even at halfway, we're looking at 108, which is still borderline top 20 (something like 17-18 I think). It looks even worse if we take out the 3.5 point advantage we'd expect for having played at home.
So while we SHOULD be a top 20 team, we should have been in 2016 and 2017 as well, but were not far off.
ACC caliber doesn't mean much, IMO, when all those caliber players seem to be so ineffective on the offensive end. Fact of the matter is we had exactly 2 guys who contributed scoring in the halfcourt, and UNC could dedicate pretty much everything to stopping those two (and they still combined for 60 points...just nuts). IMO those role players simply don't contribute enough offense to offset those 2 top scorers to say with any confidence that we would definitely be top 20 without zion. Eventually, the scoring needs to come from somewhere...and tonight, it didn't.
1200. DDMF.
I chortled...not because I agree...but because if there's one person who is decidedly LESS affected by the kinds of emotions you ascribe to all of, it's Kedsy.
And if there's one person who is generating massive amounts of unique content here as opposed to the "copy/pasta" cliches often parroted, it's Kedsy.
If you can't deal with someone posting stats due to your emotional state, then perhaps you should take a breather from DBR, let alone disparage said posts.
1200. DDMF.
I don’t see Kedsy’s comments as being particularly controversial or something that should have elicited a strong emotional response. Now, I’m not big on assigning credit, or lack thereof, to players simply based on high school ranking, as said rankings are quite regularly shown to be off-base. But, I do see where he’s coming from and on the surface it appears to have merit.
Oh, and I would like to hear more about those copy/pasta cliches to which you alluded.
wearing my Zion tee shirt today in solidarity
Nike issues statement and their shares are down in pre-market trading with commentary tying to Zion's shoe explosion.
I thought the latter was a bit silly but considering the mocking memes and social viralit-y of the moment, there's legitimate damage being done to Nike's brand that could translate to sales dips for the PG 2.5 shoes...
I find it quite bizarre that Williamson makes three (presumed) consecutive Duke number one picks who have suffered leg injuries during their freshman seasons.
Brand came back. As did Irving. So, I suppose hope should remain for Williamson as well.
What if additionally, Duke just underperformed tonight? It seems really unlikely to me that if we played this game 1,000 times without Zion, UNC would average a 16-pt victory. So, we don't need gameplanning to be worth 16 points or whatever. We need Duke to have underperformed by a certain amount of points and (separately) time to gameplan to be worth a certain amount of points.
This analysis, I like much better. I would agree we need to get Tre scoring more as the (now) 3rd option, and we probably need Jack or Alex to hit threes. Both seem doable to me.
I wouldn't speak for all Duke fans because I don't think you're even close to representing the majority here. A small percentage of Duke fans, sure, but personally I think your post is weird. Do you not live in fear when RJ and Cam play then? They are worth very conservatively at least 8 million (the guarantee for the #7 pick in the draft), or is there a certain earnings threshold that needs to be crossed before you feel bad? Tre Jones is worth at least $3 million and like Zion has already gotten injured this season -- do you fear for him? And if Jack White got hurt, wouldn't that suck, too? Or does one need to be a surefire NBA pro for you to feel bad? (Additionally, it's just really unlikely for Zion to suffer an injury that would prevent him from being a rich man, and I'm not talking about insurance.)