Post by Jeremiah Hill on Jun 26, 2014 2:14:29 GMT
I am a huge fan of Embiid’s talent and upside, so I was disappointed to hear that he injured his foot. Further, this makes pinpointing his draft value a painful experience, as I have no medical expertise and do not believe I have any edge whatsoever when it comes to predicting health. But I will share my thoughts nevertheless.
From the sound of it, this particular injury is a worse than his back injury but not condemning on its own. Zydrunas Ilgauskas made a strong recovery from the condition early in his career in spite of being 2 inches taller than Embiid. Yao Ming didn’t recover, but the Rockets’ doctor came out and noted that Yao was a 7’6 monster with uniquely high arches on his foot, and the injury is unlikely to affect Embiid as badly as it did Yao. Further, it seems that the early prognosis is a favorable point for Embiid as past cases have been exacerbating by going undiagnosed in their early stages. While the injury on its own seems like it could derail Embiid, it sounds like he has a good enough chance of full recovery to not have his draft stock torpedoed by it.
What sits less well than me is that in 647 minutes, Embiid managed to hurt his knee and back and then he somehow managed to injure his foot in the offseason. As much as I’d like to believe that he simply has the worst injury luck ever, it’s hard to shake the notion that he’s simply bad at staying healthy. I have no idea how predictive a myriad of injuries at a young age are regarding future ability to stay healthy, but it feels a bit scary.
Embiid now has to fade his foot injury, general durability issues, and the fact that he’s going to miss out on sorely needed competitive reps to make up for lost time with respect to playing experience. This definitely deflates his draft stock, but I have no idea how much. For all I know he’s doomed and we should be slashing his draft stock by like 75%. Or maybe we are all over-reactive to injuries and this only depresses his stock by 15%.
What I do know is this: once health is assumed, Embiid is miles more valuable than any other prospect in the draft. He was in a tier of his own before the injury concerns popped up, and super upside should be valued on an exponential curve. If I was given the choice of healthy Embiid at #1 or the #2 and #3 picks, I would have chosen healthy Embiid rather confidently. It’s fair to say that healthy Embiid has approximately twice the draft value of healthy ******** (my #2 prospect), so instantly dropping him below #1 is not necessarily correct. It is well within the realm of possibility that his stock should not be slashed by 50%+, in which case he is still worth the #1 pick injury risk and all. There’s also a chance that it should be slashed by more than 50%, which would slide him down multiple slots.
So the short answer is I have no idea what to think about his injury, but I can say that his talent is so awesome he is going to remain at or at least near the top of my big board.
From the sound of it, this particular injury is a worse than his back injury but not condemning on its own. Zydrunas Ilgauskas made a strong recovery from the condition early in his career in spite of being 2 inches taller than Embiid. Yao Ming didn’t recover, but the Rockets’ doctor came out and noted that Yao was a 7’6 monster with uniquely high arches on his foot, and the injury is unlikely to affect Embiid as badly as it did Yao. Further, it seems that the early prognosis is a favorable point for Embiid as past cases have been exacerbating by going undiagnosed in their early stages. While the injury on its own seems like it could derail Embiid, it sounds like he has a good enough chance of full recovery to not have his draft stock torpedoed by it.
What sits less well than me is that in 647 minutes, Embiid managed to hurt his knee and back and then he somehow managed to injure his foot in the offseason. As much as I’d like to believe that he simply has the worst injury luck ever, it’s hard to shake the notion that he’s simply bad at staying healthy. I have no idea how predictive a myriad of injuries at a young age are regarding future ability to stay healthy, but it feels a bit scary.
Embiid now has to fade his foot injury, general durability issues, and the fact that he’s going to miss out on sorely needed competitive reps to make up for lost time with respect to playing experience. This definitely deflates his draft stock, but I have no idea how much. For all I know he’s doomed and we should be slashing his draft stock by like 75%. Or maybe we are all over-reactive to injuries and this only depresses his stock by 15%.
What I do know is this: once health is assumed, Embiid is miles more valuable than any other prospect in the draft. He was in a tier of his own before the injury concerns popped up, and super upside should be valued on an exponential curve. If I was given the choice of healthy Embiid at #1 or the #2 and #3 picks, I would have chosen healthy Embiid rather confidently. It’s fair to say that healthy Embiid has approximately twice the draft value of healthy ******** (my #2 prospect), so instantly dropping him below #1 is not necessarily correct. It is well within the realm of possibility that his stock should not be slashed by 50%+, in which case he is still worth the #1 pick injury risk and all. There’s also a chance that it should be slashed by more than 50%, which would slide him down multiple slots.
So the short answer is I have no idea what to think about his injury, but I can say that his talent is so awesome he is going to remain at or at least near the top of my big board.