Okay, I think I just feel like rambling tonight, but man I'm just so glad to actually see some basketball! After hearing all this good talk about the Rockets medical staff a few weeks ago, and then seeing our current rash of injuries, I decided to do some research. From my memory of the past 10-15 years it seems the Rockets have been nothing special in the ways of avoiding injuries or drafting non injury prone players (Ralph Sampson?), but also not exceptionally terrible. (New Jersey and Golden State come to mind for teams with a ton of injury problems recently) Before I get into all the number I will credit the Rockets staff for correctly reversing the Sean Elliot/Robert Horry trade since Elliot ended up missing an entire season and a shortened career because of his kidneys. Now I may be wrong to talk about the medical staff when it comes to the frequency of injuries, since their main job is to treat and diagnose injuries, but I also believe they should be finding ways to prevent them also, be in conditioning or whatever. Just look at the Jazz (Man, I hate this team more than any other, but I honestly have to give them credit in this area) to see an example of what the right conditioning can do for a team. I don't know if it's the practices they have, the mentality that Sloan puts into his player's, the Jazz's medical staff or what, but man, it's disgusting how few injuries they have. (Especially when for 10 years you root for Malone and Stockton to take a fall, but it never seems to happen ) Look at Howard Eisley and Shandon Anderson, both former Jazz players, and both played all 82 games last season. Does anyone have any theories on why the Rockets and other teams seem to have bad luck with injuries, while other teams never seem to have a major problem? Is it conditioning? Is it a cautious training staff vs. an aggressive training staff (holding people out longer to be safe or letting people play sooner with the risk of re-injury)? I have been very injury prone myself, and I think part of it is not doing proper conditioning for the sports I play. Could it also be that teams like Utah try to draft players who are less injury prone? I think there are so many variables that fall into this question, so I don’t expect any one good explanation, but I think a discussion on this could be interesting. I looked at an NBA database to find out how many players play in 78 games or more a season to determine where the Rockets stand in this category since Rudy T started coaching. I know this may be a pretty meaningless stat, since sometimes it could be a certain player is taken out of the rotation for a few games or other reasons, but I can’t think of a really good way this late at night. If anyone else has some suggestions I’ll be glad to dig through the database and try to analyze it a different way. I don’t have any way to check why the player didn’t play certain games. <pre>Year Rockets League Difference 00-01 4 3.448276 0.551724 99-00 2 4.103448 -2.10345 98-99 4 4.586207 -0.58621 97-98 2 3.655172 -1.65517 96-97 3 3.551724 -0.55172 95-96 1 3.482759 -2.48276 94-95 3 3.740741 -0.74074 93-94 4 3.888889 0.111111 92-93 6 3.925926 2.074074</pre> Looking at the numbers I'd have to say it looks like we have a less "Iron Men" than the average team. If I'm not mistaken, was 92-93 Rudy T's first full season? Did Rudy keep the medical staff when he became coach, or did he replace them over the years? I've never been one to follow staff members other than coaches, GMs, and owners. I’m interested in what theories everyone else on here has about our injury proneness, and how good our medical staff really is. (Just to make it clear I’m not trying to knock our medical staff, just maybe the way we condition our players.) B
The rocks should employ Cuban's style of coaching to trainers. Every rocket has their own doctor. Cato has three. Two medical for him. A phyciatrist.
Age, bad luck, and fragile players. Players who were injury prone in Houston, are still injury prone on other teams, Brent Price, Robert Horry, Sam Cassell up until recently. Some of the other injuries came because of wear and tear, Hakeem, Charles, Clyde. Others were just flukes. Mario's broken wrist, Charles injured ankle and lacerated hip, Price blowing out his knee twice, E-Mail blowing out his knee, Mo blowing out his achilles. And this year it's more about training camp being in session for the first time. I bet there are injuries around the league, and Houston's may have been more intense then usual with so many hyper and energized young players around. It's more about bad luck. Remember, Stockton missed about 2 months a few years ago with knee surgery, pretty much like Hakeem did, so it's more of luck I think then anything a team's doctors can do. Love the injury statistics!
How do the numbers look if you use 70 or 75 games as your bench mark? Also, whats the average # of players that've played all 82 games & can you break the percentages down by position? In other words, what position seems to be the most durable? This is your assignment for tonight.
Okay, one at a time here Hottoddie This takes way longer than it should, if only I had the database in a format where I could write queries directly... Here are the numbers using 70 games as a bench mark. By the way, if you are wondering about the lockout season, I base those on a percentage of games, making it 43 games for that season. <pre> Year Rockets League Difference 2000 6 6.137931034 -0.137931034 1999 6 6.379310345 -0.379310345 1998 4 6.551724138 -2.551724138 1997 5 5.689655172 -0.689655172 1996 3 5.689655172 -2.689655172 1995 5 5.655172414 -0.655172414 1994 4 5.814814815 -1.814814815 1993 7 6.629629629 0.37037037 1992 8 6.888888889 1.111111111 1991 7 6.629629629 0.37037037 </pre> Looks like the Rockets didn't fare to well after the 93-94 season. Next up, 75 games benchmark! B
75 game benchmark <pre> Year Rockets League Difference 2000 4 4.689655172 -0.689655172 1999 4 4.896551724 -0.896551724 1998 4 5.586206897 -1.586206897 1997 3 4.206896552 -1.206896552 1996 4 4.448275862 -0.448275862 1995 1 4.448275862 -3.448275862 1994 3 4.703703704 -1.703703704 1993 6 5.222222222 0.777777778 1992 6 5.148148148 0.851851852 1991 6 5.666666667 0.333333333 </pre> I like the idea of checking by position, but unfortunately this database I'm using does not list the players position. I could try to figure it out by next week, since I'll have to look up some player positions for a few I'm not sure about, and I may need help for some of the players in the early 90's who may have just ended there career. I've got some other ideas to look up, but unfortunately it takes more time than I like. I would like to go back every year since the NBA started, but I guess I wouldn't be focused on my real job. Oh well, back to real life for a while and I'm sure I'll be back when I think of a smaller idea to work with. B
How about posting Chicago's #'s as a comparison, alongside the Rocket's #'s, since they won 6 Championships during that era.
What about some sort of graphical depiction of the statistics? Some sort of line graph maybe, or a bar chart...
I added the Jazz and the Bulls to use as comparison teams. If you can't see the graphs, I added a link to the graphs. Sorry, I'm new at posting pictures to boards, and Geocities limits the traffic to an insane amount, so they may not be visible most of the time. <pre> 70 Games Year Jazz Bulls Rockets League 2000 9 4 6 6.14 1999 9 4 6 6.38 1998 9 5 4 6.55 1997 7 7 5 5.69 1996 9 7 3 5.68 1995 8 7 5 5.68 1994 8 8 4 5.81 1993 6 7 7 6.63 1992 8 7 8 6.89 1991 7 8 7 6.63 </pre> <pre> 75 Games Year Jazz Bulls Rockets League 2000 9 1 4 4.69 1999 8 1 4 4.90 1998 7 2 4 5.59 1997 7 4 3 4.21 1996 8 6 4 4.45 1995 6 5 1 4.45 1994 7 6 3 4.70 1993 6 5 6 5.22 1992 7 5 6 5.15 1991 7 8 6 5.67 </pre> <pre> 78 games Year Jazz Bulls Rockets League 2000 8 0 4 3.45 1999 7 1 2 4.10 1998 7 2 4 4.59 1997 7 4 2 3.66 1996 7 3 3 3.55 1995 6 4 1 3.48 1994 6 5 3 3.74 1993 5 3 4 3.89 1992 7 3 6 3.93 1991 6 7 6 4.63 </pre> I think I'm going to take a break from this for the evening. If anything I think this does show the Jazz are quite superior when it comes to having healthy players. (Man I hate saying good things about the Jazz) B I know this isn't related to my thread, but does anybody have some advice to how I can post pictures that I create without using my web page? I only have a yahoo web page and I think it limits traffic severely. Thanks for any advice!
YES, I CAN POST PICTURES!!! Okay, I know this is a little old, but I did actually do the graphs like I said I was, so now you can actually look at it. After reading about how Glen could possibly out again with a different injury, I have a bad feeling injuries will be a recuring theme this year. B
