His first injury, the shoulder, had nothing to do with increased minutes. That was a random fluke of an injury.
are you sure? he had played 85 minutes in 96 hours. How many times in his previous 2800 minutes had he been whacked on the shoulder? Did the stress of a short-term, significant increase in stress contribute to weakening his Labrum? I know, from experience, that fatigue can cause injury, and that increased work load can cause fatigue
I don't think he's the "missing ingredient", but having him able to play PF would mean that there would always be a defensive-minded guy available at that spot. I'd certainly prefer to see Collins playing that spot when Kanter is on the court than Melo. Melo could slide over to the backup 3 position. Since it's doubtful that Collins sees the court this year, I guess it's just pointless speculation at this point to think about how the minutes would get divided up.
When I lived in L.A. in the 80's, my Lakers had uber talent - Magic, Kareem, Worthy ... but truly, Rambis was the glue guy that made it all work.
1) A healthy Zach could really help our team, or any team. 2) I don't know whether "healthy Zach" is a fictional construct. 3) Boxscores are generally mediocre data, but particular poor for role players. 4) Zach is a very intelligent defensive player with unicorn-like 3&D potential. Hope it all works out. I'm rooting for him.
they are all injuries that occur frequently....which are not "flukes": * "In fact, Collins’ anterior dislocation — in which the upper arm bone slides out of socket to the front — is the most common type of dislocation, representing about 95 percent of all shoulder dislocations" https://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/...e-for-the-portland-trail-blazers-forward.html
That's a sobering thought. Zach came off the bench in HS and college, and again his first two years in Portland, and had no injury history that I'm aware of. He's been nothing but an injury magnet since being awarded the starting position. Did his earlier coaches know something? If "scouting team" doesn't refer to advance scouts like I was picturing, then you may be right. Why not then just say some of the coaches hate him, though?
I assume we wouldn't be interested in Zion Williamson since he's had repeated knee injuries. Obviously injury prone: Deep knee bruise in AAU kept him out several months. Grade 1 knee sprain at Duke when his shoe exploded on him caused him to miss 3 weeks. Bruised knee at summer league got him shut down. Torn meniscus last year caused him to miss 4 months and kind of played sporadically in the bubble. The kid's got a time bomb for a knee. Wouldn't touch him with a 10-foot pole.
we are talking about the shoulder injury. That is the injury that he got when his minutes increased. I'm saying that his minutes increasing didn't cause his injury, and it was was a fluke occurrence of the injury. the frequency of separated shoulders in the NBA is not common, but knee and ankle injuries are. Also, knee and ankle injuries are an impact injury, a shoulder injury is not an impact injury. you're confusing the KIND of injury with the FREQUENCY of the injury, and you're correlating the causes of said injuries. Also, Bowie and Oden had repeated *similar* injuries. Broken leg and knee issues. So again, Zach's shoulder injury was a fluke injury in the sense that it wasn't related to his increase in minutes, nor was his ankle injury related to an increase in minutes.
like I said, it could be the scouts of NBA and college talent, not the coaches that said, I'm fairly skeptical of what the guy talking to the Platypus said, or at least about the way the sentiments of the scouts were characterized. I can imagine they'd have doubts about Zach's durability. And for sure, right now Zach probably has negative value; a big with 2 ankle surgeries from a single injury probably raises big red flags. But I seriously doubt the scouts hate Zach. Doubts don't equal hate. But maybe that's just semantics.
I think any team, including the Blazers, would love to have 20 year old Zion just beginning the 2nd year of his 4 year rookie deal. Obviously, his value is degraded by the injuries, so he has 2 different ceilings, but the healthy one is sky high but then, the risk/reward for Zion is in an entirely different zip code than the risk/reward for Zach Zion doesn't have any similarity comps yet, but Zach does: that's not a who's-who list, that's just a who? list
