Big men only make up about 20% of the league but they seem to have 50% of the serious long term or season ending injuries. These are centers who've had serious injuries: Yao Big Z Al Jefferson Bynum Brand Kaman Oden Rasho Were bigs always more injury prone? I seem to recall bigs from the 80s-90s being pretty alright health wise...Shaq, Mourning, Dream, Robinson, Duncan, Ewing weren't constantly boggled down with injuries unlike this current crop of centers. What's changed about the league or in training techniques that's causing all these injuries to big men?
Shaq actually has actually had injury issues virtually every season since he came to LA. Nothing career threatening, but his lack of serious off-season condition has left him vulnerable to missing games during his career. Robinson missed almost the whole '97 season (thats how they drafted Duncan) Ewing missed the famous playoff run the Knicks had in '99 Brad Daugherty was a real good center for the Cavs whose career got derailed due to injury I'd say the injury rates are more or less the same
Here's a wild guess. Back in the day, you could be a dominant Moses Malone and then Hakeem Olajuwon, and not be 7 feet tall. All these 7+ footers are defying physics when they run around a hardwood court jumping up and down. Shaq is the amazing exception. But under 7 feet seems a ton more durable than over 7 feet.
Just for the sake of argument/discussion. Kareem, Robert Parish and Mutumbo (despite his career ending knee injury, but c'mon he was like 47 at the time) had healthy careers being over 7'
IMO the human body is getting taller & heavier. Today's athlete spends more time building muscle so he/she can move more weight higher, faster & quicker. If the muscles can't handle the extra stress, you have tears, strains & sprains. If they do hold up, you have stress fractures & broken bones. That's my take on the situation.
I wouldn't be surprised if he does in the relatively near future. He's still pretty young now so I wouldn't call him an exception yet.
Bill Walton Brad Daugherty Ralph Sampson Arvydas Sabonis Sam Bowie Steve Stipanovich Danny Manning... All big name centers of the past that also had careers either ended or peak years cut short by injuries. These were guys that played around the time of the Ewings, Robinsons, Olajuwons, etc. you mentioned. You're also naming some 2nd and 3rd tier centers having injury problems. I'm not sure many of us could even name the 2nd and 3rd tier centers of the 80's and 90's on some teams, so who knows if they also had injury problems. :grin:
Howard is a freak. It's really hard to compare him to others because his body type is so unique. He seems to have the body proportions and athleticism of a much smaller guy, just in a bigger frame. He actually won a dunk contest as a seven footer. I think that the frequency of the injuries these big guys suffer tends to be a natural result of combining so much physical punishment with unusual body proportions and the unbalanced weight distributions that result. The fact that league officiating these days tends to be relatively unfair to big men means that they tend to take more punishment, and those of us who are Rockets fans are very familiar with that especially when it comes to Yao ... but he isn't the only one. Most offensive-minded pivot men make the same complaints, although none are depended upon to carry their teams offensively like Yao is. Howard is certainly still young, but I think he has a lower probability of having these sorts of injuries because he doesn't seem to have those unusual body proportions. He looks like your run of the mill athletic big man, just much bigger, stronger and faster. He really does embody the word "superman" in that sense.
About as much as Ralph Sampson was. I should've said "big men" instead of centers, but yes, Manning did play center, although he's known more for being a PF. When his mobility deteriorated, he played C more.
off-topic, but when he was in college and as a rookie, Danny Manning could play pretty much any position on the court, 1-5. A great player, too bad his career was cut short.
Maybe because he is just so slim. That, or the injuries haven't been kicking in yet because he's so young. Hopefully, he doesn't get stress fractures and such later on in his career.
Is it the current generation of big men that are super injury prone? Or is it that Portland's star big men usually have problems. They always draft a great injury prone center to replace the one lost 5-6 years previously. Bill Walton 1974-1978 Sam Bowie 1984-1989 Arvydas Sabonis 1995-2003 Greg Oden 2008-
Not really. It's more noticeable because their is a decline talent wise in big men. We don't have a lot of good ones so it is more noticeable when they do go down.
Good points. They were all relatively thin too, by today's NBA standards. This relates to Air Langhi's post right after yours, perhaps. Parrish is still thin, btw: But Dr. of Dunk also has a good point -- we just forget about a lot of the Greg Oden's of decades past.
