If you're like me, you held your breath while reading Shams Charania's tweet when he broke the news that the Spurs' number two overall draft pick, Dylan Harper, underwent surgery. The good news is that San Antonio's rookie only needed to repair his thumb after injuring it in a workout on Wednesday, so he's expected back in time for the start of the season, if not close to it. But there's still a bad news angle.
Harper is going to miss all of training camp. Unless they're playing preseason games overseas, most teams are due to start the real practices on September 29. He's going to miss all of the structured practices, completely run by the coaches as they install the game plans for the season. He's also going to miss the entire preseason. That's less than ideal for the rookie you hope to have a significant impact on the year.
Last season, De'Aaron Fox had an injury to his hand that affected his shooting all season long. Thankfully, they're taking care of this so that doesn't happen to Harper. But you still have the potential of another Devin Vassell-style obstacle.
Harper could struggle with consistency
As if it isn't difficult enough to play with consistency as a rookie in the NBA, he now has the misfortune of missing over a month of practices and exhibition games. We won't know how much of any potential struggles we can attribute to first-year woes, and how much we could blame on the time he's now set to miss.
At least he won't need to recover as long as Dev did last year. He didn't have surgery to repair his injured foot until June. As a result, his rehab spanned the entire offseason, not allowing him to train for the next campaign. When the team announced that he'd miss the start of the season, fans were bothered, but not overly so. They guaranteed that he'd return soon enough.
When he did, he hit the ground running as they brought him off the bench to ease him back into his role. But it didn't take long for the Florida State alum to begin stumbling, and he didn't truly regain his balance until hope for a successful season was completely lost. That's exactly what we don't want for D. Harp.
He's a rookie, yes, but he's one of the more pro-ready prospects in the draft. The team is looking for big things from him, and this isn't the picture-perfect start everyone is hoping for. Hopefully, since the injury won't sideline him as long as it did Vassell, he won't go through similar problems. We want the promising lottery pick to have every chance to win Rookie of the Year.