Since tearing his left Achilles tendon on March 5, Wesley Matthews has been the subject of panicked discussion in the Portland basketball community. Nobody can say for sure that he will be the same player that he was prior to the injury when he returns. While all eyes track his recovery, I’d like to draw yours, for a moment, to his teammate Tim Frazier. Matthews is not the only Trail Blazer to limp this path.
Have you ever wondered how a player like Frazier could go undrafted then utterly dominate the D-League as a 24 year-old rookie? Have you ever pored through his college statistics and thought to yourself, “Five years at Penn State? That can’t be right.” If you weren’t on the NCAA Basketball news scene a few years ago, there is more to Frazier’s story than meets the eye.
On November 18, 2012, four games into what would have been Frazier’s final season of college ball, he tore his left Achilles coming off a ball screen. His already long-shot chances of being drafted to an NBA team took a major hit, so he applied for a medical redshirt and repeated his senior season. On draft day 2014, the few organizations that had given him a first look denied him a second due to the uncertainty that comes with a surgically repaired Achilles.
It was heavily speculated that Frazier would take his basketball career to Europe. After all, he had demonstrated that he could still play at a high level after the injury. Instead, he joined the Philadelphia 76ers for Summer League when Head Coach Brett Brown reached out to him, setting him on an NBA journey that would eventually see him return to Philadelphia on a pair of 10-day contracts.
The time in between Frazier’s Summer League stint and his NBA debut was spent with the Maine Red Claws of the Developmental League, where he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he still had a lot to offer among stiff competition. He would ultimately be named 2014-15 D-League Rookie of the Year and MVP with averages of 16.1 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 9.5 assists per game.
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Frazier’s talents as a distributor and reputation as a sportsman registered his blip on Portland’s radar. When the Sixers were forced to let him go in order to scoop Thomas Robinson off waivers, the Trail Blazers did some scooping of their own. Even in very limited minutes, Frazier’s court vision stood out as an immediate positive for the Trail Blazers, who can choose to fully guarantee year two of his contract this fall if it suits them.
Moral of the story: Although much younger than Matthews when he sustained the injury, Frazier is a rare testament to the possibility of post-Achilles tear success. It is then within the realm of reason to conclude that a player of similar mind and motivation could accomplish a comeback as well, if his body allows. These guys have a lot in common, and while no two athletes are the same, Frazier’s resilience on his own level bathes Matthews’ recovery in an optimistic light.
Tim Frazier video via Big Ten Network
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