‘He has just always loved a challenge.’ How Jon Scheyer prepared his whole life for the pressure — and privilege — of succeeding Coach K at Duke.

DURHAM, N.C. — The photos popped into the family WhatsApp thread on a Wednesday evening this summer, a strategically timed greeting from Jon Scheyer to his parents, two older sisters and two brothers-in-law.

For more than a decade, July 13 had been a somber anniversary for the family, a reminder of the freak 2010 accident that derailed Scheyer’s grandest basketball dream, interrupting his playing career and sending him down a path of pain, frustration and ultimately self-exploration.

That crash was represented in the first photo Jon sent, the one capturing him in a heap on the sideline at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas a moment after Golden State Warriors wing Joe Ingles poked his right eye with such force and at such an ill-fated angle that Scheyer’s eyelid was cut, his retina torn and his optic nerve significantly damaged.