Tracy McGrady and @ScottiePippen don’t agree on whether Zion Williamson is the best player on his Duke team – but regardless, they both think he should stop playing NCAA ball right now, to eliminate the risk of injury before the draft. pic.twitter.com/7Egu42FjfJ
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) January 16, 2019
In the leadup to the first of this season’s two (three? four??) men’s basketball matchups between Duke and North Carolina, one of the biggest stories making its rounds on social media was the Super Bowl-level ticket prices just to get into Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Between the decades-old rivalry and the limited seating capacity, it’s one of the hottest tickets every year. But this time, people were paying several thousands of dollars on the secondary market for the chance to watch Zion Williamson.
He lasted 30 seconds before leaving the game with a severity-to-be-determined knee injury when his foot ripped through his shoe. Williamson did not return, and North Carolina cruised to an 88-72 victory.
And the student-athlete who everyone was paying to see?
He received zero of those dollars.
Before we get into asking the inescapable question of whether Williamson should ever play another unpaid second for Duke, can we talk about the absurdity of this injury for a second?
Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised because this is the same man-child who dented a basketball with his fingers during that epic comeback against Louisville, who gained 100 pounds in two years and who we’ve been waiting all season with bated breath to watch shatter a backboard. Feats of near-impossible strength are just sort of his thing.
But planting so hard that you destroy a shoe is incomprehensible. Even the greatest, strongest basketball players roll an ankle from time to time, but not Zion. Evidently, his calves, ankle tendons and countless lower-leg ligaments are stronger than leather.
Unbelievable stuff, and a testament to why he’s going to be the No. 1 pick in the 2019 NBA draft no matter how bad the knee injury ends up being. Given the amount of success Blake Griffin, Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid have had in spite of major injuries before their professional careers even began, this isn’t going to scare NBA teams away from Williamson.
Which brings us back to something Scottie Pippen and Tracy McGradydiscussed on ESPN’s The Jump on January 16: Why keep playing and risk a major injury?
