Still rehabbing from injury, UNC basketball signee remains focused on his future
North Carolina basketball signee Jalen Washington believes in planning his future out. Always has, really, going back to his middle school days when Chris Buggs and Sean Smith first began training him and his older brother, Jimmie Washington.
Right now, that plan calls for patience and the discipline that comes with waiting. He’s currently going through a rehabilitation process he believes will have him ready to play for the Tar Heels next season.
Washington, a 6-foot-9 power forward, had surgery on his right knee to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament and partially torn meniscus. It forced him to sit out his senior season in high school. But he’s more focused on the reward that he sees from doing it.
“It was a huge decision because it was dealing with my future,” Washington told The News & Observer. “My family and my circle was feeling (concerned) about me playing, they would rather me have the next 15 or 20 years to play than just having this one season. So definitely, we kind of thought long term more than just the short-term goals and accolades.”
In the short team, it took Washington out of the running for Indiana Mr. Basketball, an award that hasn’t gone to a player from the Northwest corner of the state since Bryce Drew in 1994. It also cost him a chance to improve his ranking in the Class of 2022.
Washington has prepared with the bigger picture in mind since he began to take basketball seriously.
Buggs, who also coached Washington at Gary (Indiana) West Side Leadership Academy; and Smith, who serves as an assistant coach and mentor to Washington; first began working with him when he was in the sixth grade, standing at about about 6-3. It helped that Washington saw how his brother took to their tutelage.
Jimmie Washington is currently a 6-7 junior forward for Indiana University-Northwest, which competes in the NAIA. He developed a well-rounded game before his younger brother.
Buggs said he and Smith thought Jalen Washington could have similar skills before he hit his growth spurt.
“We devised a plan when he was in the seventh grade of certain things he’d worked on, and he really believed in the plan,” Buggs said. “We knew that he needed to be skilled, so his entire middle school career, we worked on nothing but dribbling, shooting and passing.”
When he grew to 6-7 as a ninth grader, Buggs said they began working with him in the post. By then, he’d already developed guard-like skills that have helped shape him into the versatile power forward that made him a coveted recruit.
Washington, who is now 6-9, is a prototype big that UNC coach Hubert Davis wants in his system. He can score on every level. He’s athletic and a strong rebounder. He’s a lot more comfortable creating off the dribble than most players his size.
When Washington committed to Carolina in July, he was considered a top-20 recruit — the highest ranked of Davis’ short tenure. By the time he actually signed with UNC in November, he’d plummeted to 40 in 247Sports.com’s composite rankings.
“You want to be as high on the list as possible, but it’s understandable, I wasn’t upset about it,” Washington said. “I didn’t take it personally because I understand rankings don’t really matter as much and it’s really about the work. So if anything, I just kind of use it as fuel to work harder and kind of prove why I feel like I’m one of the better players in the country.”
Davis certainly feels like Carolina got a steal, regardless of what the rankings say. On signing day he called Washington, “the best shooting big in the country in this class.”
Washington didn’t become a worse player during the three months in-between. He reportedly had been playing hurt — through his junior year of high school and while playing for his grassroots summer team.
It wasn’t until the final days of the NBPA Top 100 camp, an invitation-only session, that he tweaked the same right knee that caused him to miss most of his sophomore season with a torn ACL.
“I didn’t have any idea that I wasn’t 100 percent,” Washington said. “I know I didn’t feel really great, but I couldn’t really say why. I was just going about my everyday, playing basketball and practicing.”
Washington said what has helped him through his rehabilitation process was being injured before. Roughly 15 weeks post-operation he’s back on the court for limited drills that include jumping, some straight line running and free-throw shooting.
Washington believes he’s progressing quicker than he did the first time he was injured.
“I’m feeling pretty good about the whole situation,” Washington said. “There’s always going to be a little bit of just being a little bit worrisome, so a lot of it is just kind of trusting that the work that you’ve been putting in.”
And the work is all part of Washington’s plan to start his freshman season at UNC fully healthy.
This story was originally published January 13, 2022 at 6:00 AM.