On Tuesday, the Denver Nuggets received the worst news possible. Jamal Murray suffered a torn ACL from the game before, and is out for the remainder of the season. This is a crushing blow to a team that was finally putting it all together lately, and their hopes of a deep playoff run look very slim. Injuries like this have felt like a common occurrence this season, and any superstar you can name has likely missed time this year. It has been very unfortunate for basketball fans, as the competitive field has been at a significant disadvantage all year. This poses the question, has the shortened offseason caused injuries to make this season an asterisk in the record books?
Unfortunately, it is hard to trace injury to a certain cause and effect correlation. But, looking back at statistics from this year and past years, there are clear and evident patterns. The 28 players that were nominated as an all-star this season have missed a whopping 15% of total games this season, the second highest rate in NBA history behind the 2014-15 season (Elias Sports Bureau). Most of the blame for this is being assigned to the condensed schedule. The league decided to shorten the season so it finished on time for the Olympics, and to keep the league on schedule for next year and going forward.
A good comparison to see if this theory holds any water is to look back at the 2011-12 lockdown shortened season. During that season, 11 players went down with season ending knee ligament injuries, highlighted by the infamous ACL tear by Derrick Rose. Statistics also show that the daily injuries increased from 7.3 to 9 injuries a day over the span of a year.
This was backed up by one medical researcher, Timothy Hewett, PhD. In the NFL lockout season in 2011, he attributed a string of Achilles injuries to the athletes going an extended period of time without their regular medical resources. He said this as a warning for the NBA season that year of the lockout, that the strain of the back to backs will provide more wear and tear on your body. He seems to be correct in this hypothesis.
This season should be viewed in a similar fashion to the lockout shortened season. It should be counted in the record books, but will need to have the injuries and circumstances of the Covid shortened season kept in mind when referring to it in basketball history.
What are your thoughts on this NBA season? Have you been able to enjoy it despite injuries and adversity?
This was good! But next time I think you should use less mediacl statsics and different ways to make it more interesting. But overall very infromational!