Yes, that's all I'm saying. Taking nothing away from them but on the injury front they have been very fortunate. Yes playing less minutes means less chance of injury, but these guys still playing 82 games a season plus practices and they still avoided key injuries something no other team has managed to accomplish.
luck or not. even if we were fully healthy or any other team in the league was fully healthy, it'd be ridiculously hard to have the season the warriors did last season and ridiculously hard to get off to the start they have this season. let's not pretend what they've done is easy if other teams were more "healthy." the hate can't turn into ignorance. the warriors assuming all health is equal for all teams are STILL the best team in the nba.
It's part luck and part modern medicine/nutrition/training. Eating healthy plays a role. I'm sure not every player eats perfectly healthy, especially drinking alcohol which is probably one of the worst things you can do. It affects how you play. Bad flexibility, bad balance, some players land awkwardly more often than others, etc. All this plays a role. Some players seem to always get injured, and some players simply never get injured. It's not luck.
Yes, but that's not even the case because as of right now other contenders are not even healthy and we are 8 games into the season. It's not ignorance though, would the Warriors be the best team in the NBA if Klay or Curry or Green got hurt? No, my guess is they wouldn't. When they played the Cavs last year the Cavs were missing their 2nd and their 3rd best player. You can't say those players would have had no impact on the series. Had it been reversed, had it been Curry missing Klay Thompson and Green vs a fully healthy Cavs squad who would you pick to win? They deserve to win since they worked hard throughout the season to put themselves in that position and that's no easy task. But should the Rockets meet the Warriors and two of their top 3 players are hurt then I can guarantee you people will say "They got lucky, had those players played..." and they would be right. It's not to say that the Warriors wouldn't beat a fully healthy Cavs squad but it is without a doubt much easier, especially when they have avoided injuries all last year. Something no other team managed to do.
I'm not saying there wasn't luck involved. Minutes do matter. There is no doubt being tired gives you a greater chance of being injured. An example of an instance where a player gets injured while not tired doesn't mean fatigue isn't a factor in injuries. It's like saying the globe isn't warming by holding up some snow.
All excellent points...Harrison Barnes and Andre Iguodala in particular don't drink alcohol at all. We know that's not the case with James Harden. The Warriors also heavily consult a sleep researcher from UCSF on regulating sleep patterns and the proper amount of rest necessary for professional basketball players: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Warriors-Get-Sleep-Advice-From-UCSF-Researcher-301769551.html I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to understand this. Attributing the Warriors' significant accomplishments to luck is an intellectually lazy way of trying to discredit what this team has done and is currently doing while trying to make yourself feel better as a Rockets' fan.
Wasn't long ago that Curry was joked about as having glass bones though. Some players get injured more but it has a lot to do with prior injuries and the stress that takes on your body. Guys that have back injuries and knee injuries seem to start to rack up injuries. I remember a sports physician explaining this plainly that your body starts to compensate for what it lost. So Curry injuring his ankles not really a big deal but tearing a knee up means you put your body at more stress. But you can tear up your knee on any given play at any given time. Yeah you're right fatigue plays into greater risk of injury but it still doesn't change that it can happen at any time. Basically any time you plant your foot and go to make a turn your knee could explode. That's nearly the literal medical explanation of an ACL tear...or rather a sudden change of direction.
It's easy to think because these guys possess elite talent that their bodies aren't really machines or the talent overcomes the deficiencies. It just takes in different types of organic matter. Everything you put into your body matters ALOT. It's the single most important thing an athlete can do besides practice is eat healthy, and again alcohol is one of the absolute worst things you can put into your body. I mean, you tell me, are you at your best at work after a night of going out and drinking? Absolutely not. And you probably sit at a desk. Imagine if your profession was using your body in highly coordinated ways. You'd have an off night. Now imagine eating perfectly healthy and in perfect nutritional balance (theres all science to it) and getting 9 hours of sleep. The next day you're a different person. Like you said sleep matters so much. JJ Watt sleeps like 9 hours a day or something and eats really well. There's a reason he's the best.
I agree, flexibility plays a role in a lot of those injuries too and that comes down to genetics and how you train. It all plays a part. Yes luck plays a part. But saying there season was all luck doesn't give their players commitment and training staff enough credit.
That link is pretty interesting and something I've known for a long time. That powernaps over like 20 minutes are actually detrimental to you. It's actually amazing how you can take a 20 minute power nap and wake up feeling truly refreshed and energized, while when you sleep for an hour, you don't really want to wake up.
They were totally on cruise control tonight and handled the Wolves's best effort fairly easily. Too easy for them.
I also want to jump on the alcohol point too and how it changes as you age. I can remember being 19-20 designing flyers for a club promoting crew back when downtown was a thing and being able to go out and get trashed like 6 nights a week. As I got older into my mid 20s, happy hours once or twice a week , you feel pretty bad the next day but can push through it. Something happens when you hit 30, I started to feel like I just couldn't get up the next day. I cringed when we took on Lawson. A 28 year old dude with a drinking problem, I'm thinking he's gonna be inconsistent unless he totally quits. I hope he totally quits. I'm 34 now and can only drink during holidays if I want to be productive the next day. Age is a funny thing.
And...That doesn't help your case man when you look at Harden's injury history. Look, don't believe me about ACL injuries...fine...research it yourself.You can find any evidence that suggests there is some magical training regiment that can help prevent major knee tears then you are way ahead of the curve when it comes to sports medicine. Keep trying to build that strawman. No one attributing it all to luck. So tell me, why did Kevin Love get injured? Was it do to alcohol or partying or being lazy or not having the right trainer or what happened there? Talking about knee injuries, I'm betting being sluggish would actually help prevent them as they are due to hard cutting. If you are sloppy and clumsy you are not making sharp cuts. But to go back to my point, there is nothing proven that helps prevent these injuries. One thing that is certain that when you do have these major knee injuries and back injuries you become prone to having more injuries in total. Also, these ACL injuries are common to athletes and not regular people. Despite the average athlete being in better general shape than most people they suffer these injuries because of the movements they make. One bad plant of your foot and turn of your knee could change your career. That to me is luck. Also the sleep thing is not for knee injuries. These injuries factually are caused by the movement that happens. No matter how strong you are and how flexible you are if you turn the wrong way you can tear up your knee on a bad plant, fall, or cut. There is a genetic predisposition that makes it less likely for certain people but genetics too is also luck. But I never said it was all luck. Avoiding injuries ARE luck though especially in a contact sport where another player could be the reason you get injured.
I agree with most of what you said. I think the overall point we're trying to make is. You can't do much with certain types of luck like ACL tears, but there are a lot of instances where you can lower your chances of having an unlucky outcome. What can you control? and are our players maximizing their probabilities? I also don't totally believe ACL tears are pure luck. My instinct without proof is to say, even if we don't quite understand how, there is a way to lower the probability of an unlucky outcome on ACL tears. Some people could be doing it inadvertently who knows. But back to what you can control. Sleep/Fatigue, Nutrition, Training.
So despite resting starters for the entire 4th qtr and keeping their mins down in general, regulating sleep patterns and consulting sleep specialists about rest and fatigue, diet/nutrition, training, at least two very important players not drinking alcohol at all, all their quality depth, and saving wear and tear and reducing fatigue on rotations players, in the end their success to you just comes down to luck. Got it, thanks.
