re: Zion's bubble injury kept secret from team(coaches)?

I think Griff has made 2 major mistakes since taking over the Pelicans.

First, and I know I am in the minority, his handling of the Zion knee injury was terrible. They waited to have the surgery done, then held him out for at least a month longer than needed. Then, the “burst” minutes was the catalyst for where we are. There is absolutely zero scientific data to support that was the right move to have such rigid restrictions. I said it when it was happening that it was not handled well and I thought it would lead to problems. I understand that they had conditioning concerns but the communication with Zion and his camp wasn’t great and the organization is still trying to recover.

Second, the hiring of Van Gundy was terrible. If it wasn’t bad enough that he lost his roster because his coach was so out of touch, it was unforgivable that he hired a coach that had such a different vision than he did for the way to success. Knowing what we know now, that was an arrangement that had zero chance to work from day 1.

Obviously there were other mistakes, but every gm is going to have some misses. The only reasons I am not 100% out on Griff are I feel winning can cure his first mistake. It has now been 2 years since Zion’s rookie season and those hard feeing will disappear if we win. He also cut bait with Van Gundy and gave the organization a new direction. The success of the Green hire and their on court record this year will determine Griff’s fate. We will have a pretty good idea which way we are headed by January.