As teams approach the evaluation process of NBA hopefuls prior to the upcoming 2019 NBA Draft, there has been a growing concern regarding players' previous injuries and medical condition ahead of the day they're selected.
Teams often have to gamble and trust their gut instinct when drafting a player with an injury history, making this process a lot more unpredictable than it needs to be.
As it is right now, soon-to-be draftees have the choice of disclosing medical information as they wish, but some keep from it in workouts with other teams if they have been promised to be selected by a certain team. Due to the wild nature of the draft, teams end up gambling on players that they liked in a workout, even if they didn't get the full picture of what they could get with said player.
“What I would change is that a player has to do medicals or he can’t be drafted,” a veteran GM told Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated. “I’d like the [athletic] testing results, too, but the biggest thing is the medicals.”
There's been several cases of careers that have ended before they should have, most of them tied to the unfortunate history of the Portland Trail Blazers. Bill Walton, Sam Bowie, Brandon Roy, Greg Oden — these are only some of the names of great talents that were destined for very good, if not great careers — ones that ended too soon due to nagging injuries.
Going even closer than that, the Denver Nuggets gambled by drafting Michael Porter Jr. with the 14th pick, a player that was expected to go in the top-5 before concerns of his back injury, which limited him in his lone year at Missouri.
The Philadelphia 76ers traded their former No. 1 overall pick Markelle Fultz to the Orlando Magic only one season after drafting him, concerned that his shooting mechanics would never get back to normal after he was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome, an injury that has kept him off the court since playing his 15th game of the 2018-19 season.
Teams have similar concerns with a player like Zion Williamson, a generational talent that suffered a nasty ankle injury late in the season, one that has been mostly glossed over after he returned to dominate the college circuit and the NCAA Tournament — yet the need for transparency would be one that would make the draft process all the more enjoyable for nerve-wrecked NBA front offices.
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