Orlando Magic: The Jonathan Isaac situation is getting weird
By Luke Duffy
This is weird. ACL tears are not the curse they once were to a player’s career, and treatment has come a long way even since Derrick Rose was struck down in 2011. Arsenal player Hector Bellerin (currently on loan at Real Betis, where he has found his form again) put together a fascinating nine-part documentary on the ups and downs of coming back from an ACL injury.
It is well worth a watch, and as a full-back who was known for his blistering pace, it took him the relatively standard nine months to return to playing again. A different set of circumstances than Isaac’s, you might say, who has a vastly different body type and plays on a hardwood floor instead of grass.
A valid point. What about Conor McGregor then? As unpopular as he is, especially in his home country, McGregor once tore his ACL during a fight, continued on, and won. No two cases are the same, but he was back after six months and competing in a sport where his knee is very much a target for all sorts of abuse that Isaac doesn’t have to contend with.
We present these examples because we now have to move on and talk about the inevitable. The part of this story that caused me to turn off my phone and hide for a day the last time it came up. Isaac is currently unvaccinated (as far as we know), and shows no signs of changing his stance on that.
How much could this be factoring into Isaac’s decision not to come back? After all, the life of an unvaccinated player in the NBA is a lot tougher because of all of the rules that were brought in. Even more strange is that Isaac is using this period of time, when the people’s perception of him is most certainly divided, to launch his own clothing line.