2019 NBA Mock Draft: No one in the lottery wants to lose

First of all if you aren’t reading The Step Back’s other draft analyst, Trevor Magnotti, you should be. He wrote something fantastic this week on Zion Williamson, big basketball bodies, and NBA health, noting that there is no proven evidentiary correlation between height and weight and injury rate:

"“The study found no significant correlation between injury rate and height or weight, and while this is simplistic — it’s across all heights and weights, and there’s no analysis between the interaction of the two — it does show that the mass part of the force problem probably isn’t that significant.”"

Furthermore, Magnotti notes that the biggest players in the NFL, the linemen, suffer injuries less frequently than most of their counterparts:

"“You would expect, using common sense logic, that offensive and defensive linemen would be pretty high up the list, but they were the two position groups that were injured the least often per 1000 “athletes at risk,” an estimate of the number of snaps a player sees.”"

Rather than focusing on Williamson’s unique combination of near-300 lb. weight and height at 6-9 in a sport that has rarely seen bodies like his, Magnotti argues the better place to put attention is on the more significant factors like Williamson’s ability to stay in peak physical shape and an NBA training staff putting the proper biomechanical habits in place on the basketball court:

"“Essentially, whether or not Zion’s knees buckle in when he lands or changes directions is dramatically more important than whether he’s 285 or 270.”"

So there’s plenty of concern for any bigger playmaker at the NBA level, particularly as the NBA negotiates its scheduling concerns and perhaps also as pace of play and the maneuverability of the game increase. But don’t cry for Zion in specific quite yet.