It’s fast becoming ridiculous with supposed Duke fans and supporters the amount of conspiracy theories and twitter fodder regarding the injuries to Harry Giles, Jayson Tatum and Marques Bolden. I’m not sure in all my years of being a fan and covering the team that I’ve seen as much spoiled and entitled fans. Social media has really just made it worse. It’s as if everyone has become the most petulant of children when it comes to feeling as if they are owed and entitled to every piece of the inner-workings of the Duke program. Duke fans have been worse about these injuries than UNC or Kentucky fans – and that is saying a lot.
Everyone is a doctor, everyone has inside information, everyone knows the timetable and everyone knows what’s best for the players. The problem is that no one knows but the principal people involved. As many times as people poke, prod and ask – the information that comes out will be made public for everyone at the exact same time.
A couple of things to note are that:
- Duke does not owe the fans any more information than they feel or deem appropriate.
- We are dealing, for the most part, with kids and injuries; treating them as if they are already NBA players and calling them soft is idiotic and ridiculous.
- Injuries heal and reveal themselves over time. No one heals the same way, timetables are just estimates and healing is both physical and mental.
- If you question as to whether these kids are good kids and want to be at Duke then maybe you are following the wrong team.
- You do yourself and the team a disservice when you make it all about you.
- Stop waiting with bated breath on every word or every report; watch and enjoy the team that’s on the court.
- Coach K has been doing this for longer than YOU, if he’s not freaking out and panicking then why in the world are you?
With releasing information Duke is damned if they do and damned if they don’t – if Duke says a player is back in a month and that player is out for a month and a day everyone goes nuts, freaks out and assumes they are hiding something or being covert. So why the hell would they want to release any information at all? People are hanging and fixated on it like their lives are dependent on it. Relax.
Everyone that says they have a source doesn’t have a source. Trust me. Don’t be the message board person, the person that strings together internet reports and fills in the blanks with your own theories and puts it out there as fact. Just don’t, I mean sure you can but please miss me with it because I don’t really care to hear it. Sure the injury story is a legitimate one and we as fans want to see a fully healthy team but guess what – so do the coaches and the players.
Acting as if the players are personally hurting you by being injured means you need to look in the mirror and spend a little less time on message boards and twitter. There is no grand scheme to hurt you, I promise.
