When will ranked get back to normal?

My friend who was plat 5 last season got 5/5 in his Provisionals which placed him in silver 2. That is pretty harsh if you ask me, assuming he won every single game it's going to take him at least 20-30hrs to get back to plat 5, the rank he already achieved. Apparently Provisionals almost always place you lower than you were last season. This means that for the most part all of the diamonds from last season will be placed in plat, all of the plats in gold, golds in silver, etc.

It's pretty discouraging when you get placed that much lower than you were before, I was Gold 2 and I'm 1-2 right now so I'll probably be placed in silver. That's not my main issue though...My main issue is that since most of the golds are going to be in silver, ranking up in silver is going to be just as hard as ranking up in gold was last season.

This brings me back to the question in my title. How long will it take for ranked to fix itself so that ranking up in silver is just as easy as ranking up in silver last season? The reason I ask is that I don't really want to bother with ranked again until that happens.

Thanks for your time. :)