re: “Coach, I can win the game for this team. Leave me in."

Yes, they are being overly cautious. That is undeniable. Zion had a very simple, straight forward procedure. If he was able to meet his benchmarks set by the training staff there is no evidence that he is at any higher risk of re-injuring himself after this surgery. If you can find a player who re-injured himself because he came back too soon after a 13 week rehab for a partial meniscectomy I'd love to hear about it. This was a 6-8 week recovery that they turned into a 13 week recovery.

Now, saying all of that, I completely understand the approach that they are taking. If they want to be abundantly cautious there is absolutely nothing wrong with that in the big picture. However, the point of my earlier post was that if you are going to take that approach, then the VP of basketball operations shouldn't hold a press conference and state "he will not be on a minutes restriction." It opens you up to a situation like last night where the most talked about rookie in years is putting on a historic performance in the fourth qtr and you have to pull him for an arbitrary minutes restriction that you said didn't exist. It just isn't a good look.

As far as on court, playing any player for 3-4 minutes at a time is going to cause problems. There will be growing pains and I think that was obvious last night. Hopefully, Gentry will be able to figure out the best way to integrate him while he is on a 15-18 min restriction because I don't think playing him for 3-4 min at the beginning of each qtr is going to help anyone.