Why Dariq Whitehead needed two foot surgeries, and how that impacts his NBA future

Though he’s equipped with NBA-ready size and skills, Dariq Whitehead will not be sitting in the Barclays Center green room awaiting his selection in Thursday night’s NBA Draft in New York.

His path to the pros included the planned one-year stop at Duke for a season of college basketball, but the resulting two surgeries to repair a right foot fracture mean the 6-foot-7 Whitehead might not hear his name until the second round.

That shouldn’t dampen his entry to the NBA, though.

“Somebody is gonna get the second youngest player in the draft who has a great upside,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said Tuesday. “Somebody who I think fought through a lot of adversity this year. I think he showed his toughness, showed how he can be a great teammate in addition to all the skills that he has.”

Whitehead’s Duke career got sidetracked last August when he sustained a Jones fracture in his right foot. That’s a break to the bone that runs along the outside of the foot to the pinkie toe.

He had surgery and missed the start of Duke’s regular season, not making his debut until the Blue Devils’ fourth game on Nov. 21. That was 11 weeks after his injury occurred.

He wound up playing 28 games for Duke, hitting 42.9% of his 3-point shots while averaging 8.3 points per game. He played like an NBA first-round pick in stretches, but never consistently.

When the season ended and he declared for the draft, Whitehead went through medical exams that showed his right foot needed another surgery. So he didn’t participate in the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago last month.

According to an ESPN report earlier this month, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Martin O’Malley called the procedure a “revision operation with bone grafting for a fifth metatarsal Jones fracture.”

O’Malley said Whitehead should be healed in time to be a full training camp participant with whichever NBA team selects him.

Dr. Selene Parekh, an orthopedic surgeon at New Jersey-based Rothman Orthopaedic Institute who tweets sports medical information at @thefantasydrs, said such a follow-up procedure is common in Jones fracture injuries.

“Typically the situation is that the bone never fully heals and it is symptomatic,” Parekh, who previously worked at Duke but did not treat Whitehead, told The News & Observer.

He said the follow-up bone graft is designed to bring fresh bone to the fracture area.

Parekh co-authored a 2017 report showing 60% of NFL players who returned to play in less than 10 weeks from a Jones fracture needed a second surgery.

Whitehead missed a total of eight games at Duke due to various injuries and illness. He sprained his left lower leg during a January game at Virginia Tech and sat out Duke’s next four games.

“He just was never fully himself,” Scheyer said. “We weren’t able to get him back to the level he can be at. So I think a smart NBA team will see that and understand he’s got so much upside and so much ability that he wasn’t able to fully show this year.”

Remembering that Whitehead was projected as a top-10 pick prior to his injury-plagued season at Duke, ESPN college basketball and NBA Draft analyst Jay Bilas agreed with Scheyer that some team is going to get great value by picking him.

“Whitehead can really shoot it, and he’s a dynamic athlete, as well,” Bilas said. “He’s strong. He’s got a really good frame. He’s another guy where injuries set him back, and we probably didn’t see the full bag of tools that he has. But I think he’s going to be a later first-round pick in the 20s, but he could be taken in the early 30s in the second round. But he’s still the same player.”