hypothetical lillard/irving question

I think this is the sad part about the "curse of the Blazers"...it leads to (in hindsight) poor decisions about players because of correlation errors.

For instance, I keep seeing (even in this thread) how someone would pick the more "durable" player over one who was more "fragile", even though the consensus is that the "fragile" one is more talented/younger/higher upside, etc. But there are varying degrees of "fragile".

For instance, Brandon Roy had 3 knee surgeries before he even got to the league. People knew that he was "fragile", in that he didn't have two healthy knees, and would continually have problems with them. The team took the gamble on it and it paid off. His first 4 years were great. It became a problem when the team disregarded his injury history/ticking time bomb and gave him a max 5yr extension. PA will still be paying him in 2015.

Irving is something different. Sure, he's "fragile", but his injuries have been:
a) injured foot (broken? ligament damage?) at Duke, but has not affected him in the NBA
b) broken right hand (no games missed)
c) broken left finger
d) concussion after hitting his head on the ground after collision with Wade
e) 3 games w/hyperextended knee
f) sprained R shoulder
g) sprained L shoulder
Is there something systematic that makes him fragile? Is it that he's barely 21 years old, and his body is still firming up?

Oden was somewhere in the middle. He'd never had a knee problem, and yet there was the discussion about his "imbalanced" leg lengths. People said he may have hip problems, back problems, etc. but I don't think (even after his DDR stint) that there was concern about "reoccurring" knee issues. 3 microfracture surgeries (and an exploded kneecap) later, of course, things are different. And no one's pushing for him to get a max contract (anymore ).

All in all, based on how the NBA is not a league of iron men anyway and a fluke injury could happen to anyone at any time, I'd probably rather have the higher-talent guy, presuming that injuries aren't of the "recurring" or "ticking time bomb" fashion. And I don't see that with Irving.

Where I wouldn't go is to take CP3 on a 5yr/103M contract over Lillard with 3 years left on his rookie deal. CP3 is definitely the higher talent, but with almost no meniscus in one knee he's about 1 surgery away from playing as much as Brandon Roy will this year. If I had one Game 7 to play for all the marbles, sure...but in building a team there isn't any way I think you'd bet the farm on a significant and quantifiable injury risk like that.