North Carolina can withstand McDonald's injury

By now, you've likely heard that UNC guard Leslie McDonald, a rising junior, suffered a torn acl over the weekend playing in the NC Pro-Am.

I feel for McDonald. No one -- not even Duke fans, I'd hope -- wants to see a kid suffer an injury like this. Making it all the more heart-breaking is that McDonald was set to play a large role on a team that will be battling with Kentucky for the label of National Title favorites all season long.

"Not good. Basketball is very important to him, but I told him his whole life isn’t basketball and he’s going to be OK," McDonald's father told Gary Parrish when asked how Leslie was handling the injury.


North Carolina should be able the whether this blow, however. Forget the fact that this team will have a front line chock-full of future draft picks -- Tyler Zeller, John Henson, James Michael McAdoo -- and forget that the most important back court player on the team is point guard Kendall Marshall, the Heels are as deep as any team in the country on the perimeter.

Harrison Barnes will be a first-team all-american on every preseason team worth paying attention to. Dexter Strickland started over McDonald last season and was second on the team in assists. Reggie Bullock, a five-star recruit in the class of 2010, has been cleared after offseason surgery to repair a torn meniscus that bothered him during the season. And incoming freshman PJ Hairston has reportedly been tearing up the very same summer league that McDonald was injured in.

You ever hear of the saying too many cooks in the kitchen?

This may be a blessing in disguise for McDonald. If he does miss the season, he'll be granted an extra year of eligibility where he will be able to get more minutes and more shot opportunities. He'll have two years left to play on a team that will could send as many as five players to the first round of the 2012 draft.

I also want to address something I saw quite a bit on twitter after McDonald's injury.

UNC fans were upset that McDonald suffered the injury playing in a summer league. Frankly, its an idiotic notion. These guys have to play during the summer. Simply working out -- getting up jumpers, perfecting ball-handling, developing new moves, lifting weights -- is not enough if you don't have the chance to learn how to use those new skills in a game-setting against quality competition.

There isn't a place to play during the summer where you will get competition much better than the NC Pro-Am, a league that features the best high school and college players in North Carolina that also gets a number of professionals returning.

And the way that McDonald injured his knee -- having it buckle when he was trying to take a step-back jumper -- could have happened anytime.

Its a freak injury. But don't blame it on a kid trying to get better during the summer. That's exactly what you want him to be doing as a fan.