KD, Zion, Paolo, and More: The NBA Season Just Started And Injuries Are Already Ruining Everything
Jonathan Bachman. Getty Images.
Fernando Medina. Getty Images.
For the most part, the NBA season is off to a fantastic start. Spare me all the "ratings" bullshit or how "boring" things are. If you're a basketball fan and you've been tuning in every night, you know how entertaining the product has been on a nightly basis.
Unfortunately, we're getting absolutely screwed by the Injury Gods and frankly I've had enough. I'm not talking about existing injuries that we knew about from the start of the season like Embiid (about to return) or Kristaps Porzingis. I'm talking about how some of the best players in the league are starting to drop on a nightly basis to the point where you could make the case that seasons could be altered.
I know injuries happen every year and that's just part of professional sports, but it certainly seems like we're getting way more injuries to key guys to start this season, and as someone who enjoys watching the best players on the planet actually play, I find this annoying as hell.
Remember Paolo Banchero? He started the season off destroying everything in his path and had the Magic looking like they were well on their way to a top 3 seed in the East. He was making an All NBA leap right before our eyes, and then….
Since Paolo went out, that pretty much cooked the Magic. From an encouraging 3-2 start to 5-6, with their only wins coming against the shorthanded Pelicans and the Wizards. You could tell that injury really deflated things in ORL, and things are only about to get tougher for them as they are about to play some of the better teams in the East and then head out on a West Coast trip.
How about those Pelicans? Pretty much their entire starting 5 is hurt. Dejounte Murray broke his hand on October 25th, CJ McCollum and Herb Jones suffered substantial injuries on November 1st, Jordan Hawkins is out with a back injury, and just the other day their best player in Zion is out indefinitely
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Competing in the West is hard enough, but if you lose pretty much you're entire starting five including your best player, I'm not sure what you're supposed to do.
As we've seen, nobody is safe. How about the Nuggets? Anyone who has watched them play over the last few years knows that what they've been able to turn Aaron Gordon into since his arrival is not only a huge part of their success, it's basically why they were able to win their title. Given their depth issues, for them to contend they are going to need their starters to not only be available, but produce. Well, what happened?
What we've seen since this injury is Nikola Jokic go into God Mode (37/18/15 last night) but with concerns about Jokic burnout already existing before Gordon's injury, I'm just not sure how long the Nuggets can survive like this. What Jokic has been able to do to carry this team so far this season is why he's the clear cut MVP favorite, but at some point it becomes too taxing to carry a team like this just to squeak out wins.
You look back over to the East and you see a team like Philly who is finally starting to get their best players back in the lineup. PG13 finally returned, Embiid is playing this week, so for the first time this season we were going to actually get to see this team as intended. Well…
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Brutal. Part of me thinks this is somewhat related to Nick Nurse playing Maxey for around 42 minutes a night when everyone was out, but what choice did he have? He was basically the only option while the other two max guys worked on getting back into the lineup. The problem with that as we see is sometimes the body can't sustain that type of minutes/usage. Hamstrings can linger, so you have to be even more cautious, especially with a player like Maxey who relies on his burst and speed. It's annoying as hell that just as soon as George/Embiid return that Maxey is now out, and I don't even like the Sixers.
How about the red-hot Suns? Their start has been one of the better storylines of the young NBA season. Coach Bud has them shooting more 3s, Ryan Dunn looks awesome, Bradley Beal was surprisingly playing defense, and Kevin Durant got off to an MVP-caliber start. They hadn't even really gotten Devin Booker going yet and were still racking up Ws. Well…
Given KD's injury history you most certainly cannot fuck around with any sort of calf strain, and this is something that we've seen keep him out of the lineup for weeks in prior seasons. Re-evaluated in 2 weeks doesn't mean he's playing in two weeks, and it wouldn't shock me if they kept him out longer just to be safe. As someone who loves watching KD play, this sucks.
The annoying part is, it's not just older stars who are getting bit by the injury bug. The Thunder, who had pretty awesome injury luck all last year were bit last night to one of their most important two way players
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A minimum of 2 months? For a team already missing Isaiah Hartenstein, that's pretty significant. The Thunder were already pretty thin up front, so I'm not really sure what their plan of action is here. We all saw how important rebounding was for this team, it's why the Mavs ultimately beat them in the playoffs. It's why they dropped $80M on Hartenstein.
So just like the Suns, another top team in the West is now going to have to navigate without one of their best players.
Shit, even looking at the Grizzlies, who somehow are 7-4 despite this being their injury room at the moment
Can't seem to catch a break, and this is coming off a season from hell last year where their entire roster pretty much had season ending injuries.
If you're interested in what the actual injury numbers are this season, it certainly isn't pretty
So what does Adam Silver and the league do? I think the most obvious place most people would like to start is the number of games, get rid of B2Bs and all that shit, but good luck convincing the owners to sacrifice that revenue/money. Teams are trying to be safe and hold guys out of preseason, but they end up getting hurt anyway, and I'd be curious as to how much of that is because they aren't in basketball shape. You're going to get your freak accidents and rolled ankles etc, but I can't ever remember a season that had this many big-time injuries to key players within the first few weeks. It sucks.
Hopefully, this means that everyone is getting their injuries out of the way early, so once the Spring rolls around we can have everyone healthy and ready to roll for the playoffs. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, but I think we can all agree the NBA is at its best when the best players on the planet are actually on the floor and not in street clothes.