As you know, Kendall Marshall had surgery on Monday on his right hand to repair his scaphoid bone. He had a screw put in and then later tweeted that was a "Successful morning. Im screwed."
Composure is one of his strong points on, and apparently off the court as well.
The question, though, is whether or not the southpaw savant can play this weekend. He's a gutty kid, but it won't be easy. First, he has to decide whether or not to use pain killers, which is not a light decision considering this weekend's requirements. Second, everyone has their own pain tolerance, as we saw with John Henson recently.
And third, while Henson can minimize a hand and still block shots and rebound, it's really hard to imagine doing that as a point guard.
We have no medical training, but as we understand it, the best-case scenario is that his thumb is immobilized but that he can still play. It was pretty amazing to watch him play entirely left-handed against Creighton, but the game was already decided and he's a 35 minute guy, minimum.
We're not sure how you can firmly control the ball without using two thumbs. It just seems really daunting, and then there's the issue of pain/comfort. We know someone who had a very minor surgery on his knee recently, entirely trivial, and he wasn't ready to be fully active within a few days.
We admire Marshall actually, mostly because he's mastered the most beautiful aspect of basketball. It's just going to be hard.
And what people forget - because he's been superb - is that when Larry Drew II was running things, no one on UNC's team seemed able to make their own shots. They all got suddenly (and dramatically) better once Marshall took over.
Now in fairness, some of them have gotten better, notably John Henson. But take him out of the mix and UNC will have to reinvent the wheel, and in a big hurry too.
| The Duke Basketball Blue Book |
| DBR Auctions! |
| New T-Shirts! |
 |
| DBR Is On Twitter!(DBRTweetz) |