not shocking. He wouldn't be sitting out and missing the series if it was just a knee sprain. You could tell the moment his knee buckled, he definitely knew something was wrong
Ugh ... so many injuries. Is the style of play in today's league (fast-paced, lots of 1-on-1 play) a contributing factor?
I suspect a lot of this is fallout from the short period of time between the bubble and the start of the next season. This is inevitable. Players like Harden, James, Leonard etc all play heavy minutes and are hurt. Who is relatively healthy and looking great? The guy that got lots of rest (KD).
They need to shorten the season. This was also an outlier year because the lack of time for recovery between the bubble and the start of this season. The lack of rest was apparent that both finals teams last year got knocked out in the first round and the Lakers had injury problems all season. Add more teams, remove some regular season games.
The way you paraphrased it seems like you're singling out Durant. It's not his fault that the refs didn't notice he was out in the parking lot when he made the inbound play. Let it go man.
All of this injuries you are seeing are a direct result of the shorten offseason. Look at all of the guys who are out with various injuries caused merely by over use? I am talking about pulled muscles, knee strains, tweaks, and the like. Kawhi's injury was a freak accident that could have happened at any time, but if you look at Mitchell, Conley, Harden, AD, Kemba, Luka and others, these are all usage injuries. It will be interesting to see what happens in the offseason due to all of these injuries. I don't think they will shorten the season, but my gut tells me that the NBPA and many big market teams will use this as a reason to shoot down an in-season tournament. Additionally, it does not bode well for our performance in the Summer Olympics. A lot of the guys who would be playing are now hurt.
while there's a number of injuries to players, the only real out of character one you listed is harden. Everyone on that list is oft injured and all known to be injury prone. This season isn't anything new to any of them bc they're always injured in years prior. Luka didn't miss a game and his shoulder soreness could be the wear and tear of how much work he was doing battling the mavs to 7 vs the clips
I disagree its all because of the shortened season and I need some hard data to prove its up any significant margin over previous seasons. AD, conley, kawhi, and kemba have had problems staying healthy long before this season.
u don’t need to be the best team to win the title this year, just be the team missing the least amount of your top players
The average number of players sidelined per game due to injury, non-COVID-19 illness or rest this season was 5.1 (includes both teams), according to ESPN's Kevin Pelton, the highest since he started tracking it in 2009-10. That does not include games missed by players in the health and safety protocols. The next highest season was 4.8, so 2020-21 was 5% higher. The increase was even more pronounced when focusing on the league's stars. This season's All-Stars missed 370 of a possible 1,944 games (19%), the highest percentage in a season in NBA history, according to Elias Sports Bureau research. They missed an average of 13.7 regular-season games each this year. Throughout the season, team health officials and executives internally feared a spate of soft-tissue injuries, such as hamstring strains. Earlier this week, Brooklyn Nets star guard James Hardenexited Game 1 of the second-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks because of right hamstring aggravation. Similarly, Jazz point guard Mike Conley missed Tuesday's Game 1 vs. the LA Clippers because of a mild right hamstring strain. In the regular season, the same injuries caused Harden to miss more than a month and Conley to miss six games in February and nine games in April and May. These types of injuries can be tied to fatigue and stress. Fear of an increase in these injuries grew more pronounced when the schedule condensed late in the season as teams made up games postponed due to COVID-19 issues. There were 2,909 games lost to soft-tissue injuries this regular season, according to certified athletic trainer Jeff Stotts, who maintains the most authoritative public injury-tracking database that covers the NBA. It's the second-highest figure Stotts has recorded since he began tracking in 2005-06. The most was 3,038 in the 2017-18 season, which was played in 82 games vs. the 72-game campaign this year.
So every year this amount of stars are injured or missing games in the playoffs? Nah, I don’t think so
He could have avoided this if he played it safe and took an extra year off when he got injured as a Spurs.
This sites injuries AND rest. Load management is bigger than ever and only been used heavily in recent years. I wonder if you remove it from the equation what the numbers look like. Kyrie, kevin love, KD, klay thompson, cp3, kawhi, off the top of my head have all recently been injured in the post season and altered its outcome.
Don't forget Harden sitting out against the Spurs due to injury from having anal sex with a stripper the night before.
there had to be so much rest this year for a reason…the schedule was too condensed and the offseason was shortened there was also the 2nd most games lost to soft-tissue injuries this year, and the only year that beat was a 82 game schedule as opposed to 72 All those names were all injured in the same postseason? Harden, Kyrie, CP3, Conley, Mitchell, AD, Bron, Jaylen Brown, Kawhi, Embiid, Murray, and I’m sure there’s more that I’m missing that either missed the playoffs entirely, have missed playoff games, or were dealing with injuries that clearly impacted their performance…guys are dropping like flies
Practically every year has been impacted by key injuries...to somebody. Every team GS faced was injured when hey won in 2015.
The ACL is the knee ligament that is the worst to injure, right? Damn. Kawhi already plays limited physically due to physical issues on his knees.