[SportsBall] Why Achilles tears have spiked in the NBA
How did he not fuck up once on that piece of paper
Meanwhile I’m redoing post-it notes at work daily
Oh I fuck up my jobs budget due to post-it notes for sure.
I can’t not look at the text size and spacing of “Jayson Tatum Game Log” after everything else was so perfect.
E: Jayson**
Jayson*
This is just the version he posted. We don’t know that he didn’t fuck it up multiple times while filming.
many pieces of paper stitched together in post production.
Difference a professional (him) and an amateur (us)
he’s closer to picasso than we are to him
The paper has tiny dots on it that he’s connecting. It’s pretty cool
dude’s a magician or something, wild how he nailed that
he planned and practiced what he was going to do ahead of time
Could just be copying a piece of paper he plotted on a computer and printed… or just has it up on the computer screen.
The drawing is satisfying
As fuck.
Almost like it should belong in r/satisfyingasfuck
I wish i could have taken notes this neat during university 😭
Interpreting the text and figures I wrote and drew at university should be worth a degree in reconstructing lost languages.
Quality content
even on a piece of paper i cant escape it
good video tho
Great resilience champ
It had me squirming too.
They showed it again in great detail on that Netflix docuseries and I’d really prefer that be the final time I ever see it. So brutal.
The other major difference is movement per possession and miles run per possession, not just pace, which only measures how many possession there are. In other words, pace alone can’t measure the higher physical workload in the modern NBA.
In the 80s, the pace was higher and shots went up quickly — BUT think about how these players played. Most of them were posting up on offense while their teammates stood still. On defense guarding post-ups isn’t that taxing, so a higher pace doesn’t increase load as much.
In the modern day, NBA offenses are moving more than ever. Think of Steph Curry — Players run around the entire half-court, off-ball movement is everywhere, and every player is putting more miles in their body in a single possession. What about on defense? Same thing — players have to chase around guys like Steph Curry on defense, and can’t just sit and ball-watch while a player posts up like they could in older eras.
So, even if the “pace” is slightly lower nowadays than it was in the 80’s — the actual miles run and start/stop movements are much much higher due to more complex offenses and defenses in the modern age.
This is the biggest reason for the increased load, not just a pace increase.
Also somehow not mentioned when he was discussing strain, multiple if not all of these athletes that had Achilles tears also had calf and/or hammy strains or injuries of some variety prior to the Achilles. Playing through these types of injuries is the surest way to put extra strain on your Achilles as the chain from the Achilles all the way up to the glute and even lower back is extremely interconnected.
Everyone knew Hali was risking an Achilles injury by continuing to play in the Finals. Everyone on the Pacers, their medical staff, Tyrese himself, any personal trainers he was working with, any fan that was paying attention. But it was the Finals, so of course if he was able to play he wasn’t going to sit out. That’s just how most of these dudes are wired.
He even texted KD asking if KD had any regrets about coming back in the Finals. KD said no. Hali says he didn’t even need KD’s answer but it even further confirmed that he was making the right decision by playing.
If they’re a basketball player, that’s what they live for anyway. They’re not going to be J. Cole and duck out as soon as everything is on the line. They’re going to try and win a champion at risk of their careers. We have to respect it as fans.
They’re not going to be J. Cole and duck out as soon as everything is on the line.
That was objectively the right decision on his part though
The right decision was never to engage at all. Now you look crazy backtracking because you only started thinking it through after the fact.
J. Cole
Out of loop, what happened?
he made a diss track against kendrick after “like that” dropped, and quickly deleted it. cue kendrick proceeding to go apeshit on drake
No disrespect to the Pacers but the odds they make it back to one game away from winning it all was way lower than the chances Haliburton comes back from an ACL tear with how good modern sports medicine is. The only other time the Pacers have ever made it to the finals was thirty years ago.
It really could be a once in a career moment for Haliburton even if I’m rooting for him to get another shot. With how well the Pacers outperformed expectations and how marketable that playoff run made him, he’s gonna get paid regardless.
Dem bones, dem bones. Achilles bone connected to the calf bone…
I wonder if the back spasms Haliburton has had put him at higher risk. Like you said, its all connected.
He certainly had calf tightness and strains for a while.
Thought about this when they pulled Wemby- I was happy that they are trying to get ahead of it
It’s also not just miles run per possession–football (soccer) players run a lot more than basketball players but the pace is more steady more of the time. it’s accelerations and decelerations and changes of direction that put the most strain on joints and basketball has a whole lot of that.
I would guess that playing on a softer surface helps as well
Yeah, the hardwood courts put a lot more stress on the muscles and tendons, especially with how explosive basketball is.
I play badminton and there’s a very noticeable difference between wood and rubber courts.
This, can’t believe the video didn’t mention it and how deep in the comments this is buried. Tatum, Dame, and Hali all love the stepback 3, as does Luka who had calf soreness (basically now we all know that’s the precursor to Achilles ruptures) that Nico infamously thought was a major long-term risk to his future health. Think about how much load you’re putting on your ankles to go full speed forward then immediately come to a stop to fake out your opponent, then step backwards, then re-balance and jump off both feet, all as quickly as possible while maintaining proper shooting motion, before they can get back in contesting position. Then do it 5-10 times a game, 82 games a year, not even mentioning practice. Honestly just proves Harden is still the step-back king 😎
This and playing and lot during childhood are the main factors it seems. Hoping it changes soon.
Pros in most sports these days spend too much time playing their primary sport and don’t play enough of other sports in their off-seasons. Decades ago kids would play football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring (or substitute one of those for cross-country, track & field, wrestling, etc.).
Kids that over-emphasize one sport not only put themselves at greater risk for repetitive stress injuries, they miss out on potential for developing cross-sport skills.
This is one of the things that bother me when old-heads in media talk about load management.
You watch any game in the illegal defense era and on any halfcourt possession there are 6-8 guys just standing around not doing anything, taking a breather. If you were a role-player that played 30 minutes you were only being athletic for like 18 of them.
Players got their rest in the old days, they rested on the other side of the defense halfway line.
I wrote a research paper on this for my masters. I think underrated factors include AAU and sports specialization at a younger age for a lot of these guys. It really has put a lot of wear and tear on them before they even enter the league. Of course, everything you mentioned is correct and some of the biggest factors that directly affect these guys.
Imagine doing the false step every day from the age of 12.
You have to weightlift at the extreme end of range of motion to build up tendon strength to counter the wear and tear- this involves loading the knees forward of the toes to simulate thant sprint step and no one is doing that.
Definitely need to mainstream the distance covered stat for players like soccer.
SO ADD HADNCHECKING BACK IN TO SLOW DOWN THE MOVEMENT.
Exactly, players are now moving faster than ever, almost every second there’s a play being run or being setup, and that means a lot more repeated explosive movements.
The players in the NBA are at the absolute peak of human physical prowess and that puts a lot of their body under huge stress
I totally agree with you just by the eye test alone, but do they have numbers on this?
There’s speed and distance tracking since the 2013-2014 season https://www.nba.com/stats/players/speed-distance
exactly. You might get other injuries from a physical post up game, but not likely an achilles.
You could have just said “its the 3pt line being used more”. Double the distance traveled than in the 80s. You wrote multiple paragraphs of word salad which could be summed up with two sentences lol. Its pretty obvious. It has nothing to do with anything else. Its purely the culmination of the 3pt line becoming a primary offensive weapon which has stretched the distance players have to travel. Players in the 80s and coaches didnt really rely on the 3pt line at all. Most offense was midrange and post play. It wasn’t until the mid 2010s that every team started gearing up to use the 3pt line. Coach Pop was the main person responsible for this. The Spurs dominated the 2000s by having what every other team uses now for their offense. When Lebron lost to the Spurs in 2014 with an aging Spurs team it became obvious to everyone that their success was predicated on spacing their offense and utilizing the 3pt line as a primary offensive weapon. Prior to the 2010s, the 3pt shot was a hail mary shot for most teams. Players, coaches, scouts now have a mission to draft and develop as many 3pt shooters as possible because it’s just simple math. Mike D’antoni was one of those guys who pushed for the current system almost every NBA team is using. Volume 3pt shots. His main problem was that he didnt have any defense and the shooters in his time as coach were subpar. Right idea but took another 10 years of player development at the lower levels and scouting adjustments to get to what the game is now. Its all rule changes that have helped this. Players arent better or worse inherently. They just have more space to operate in thanks to the rule changes which means you cannot touch a shooter anymore. Were living in the 3pt era plain and simple
amazing. i do blame 70% of it on how much youth play growing up these days
Isn’t it the same thing baseball has been dealing with for some years now with pitching? A lot of guys blowing out elbows early due to over use in their younger years. They put them on innings limits for multiple years when they come up to try and extend the time. I don’t know if it makes a huge difference but I’m sure there is some data showing it goes or all the teams wouldn’t do it.
Baseball also has increased average velocity by 5-6% over the past 30 years, which is unsustainable for the body. They’ve tried to compensate with pitch counts, but I think the higher intensity strain isn’t offset by throwing fewer pitches.
It’s been unsustainable. They just push the limits further. Sandy Koufax retired 60 years ago when he was 30 because he didn’t want his arm to be destroyed.
I guess the right way to say it is that it’s even less sustainable. Velocity is a big enough advantage in baseball that it’s the quickest and dirtiest way for kids to make it to the big leagues, so they’re training much more for speed than control.
Most guys don’t pitch complete games now. Koufax himself threw 137 of them. The active leader in complete games is Verlander with 26. Not even 1/5th the number.
Wow TIL. Obviously have heard of Koufax before but didn’t know he retired at his peak.
Yep. If Tommy John Surgery (named after the first patient, who he and the doctor who first performed it, Frank Jobe should both be in Cooperstown under the innovators category) had been invented 10 years earlier, he wouldn’t have retired.
There’s also a much greater emphasis on spin rate in modern pitches, combine the velocity increase and you get guys throwing pitches with insane movement in like the high 90s, so your arm is getting torqued even more each time
Makes you wonder about when they cracked down on sticky stuff a few years ago too. Like are the pitchers assuming more stress on the elbow trying to spin the ball the same way they before when the sticky stuff made it easier? Kinda wild to think about
This past season, Jacob deGrom pitched more than 170 innings for the first time since 2019 due in some part to making an effort to not throw as fast. Went from averaging 99.2 mph on his fastball in 2021 to 97.5 mph in 2025.
I myself am a prime example of this. I played club baseball year round starting at 9 years old. I had my first stint of physical therapy at age 11 due to shoulder tendinitis. I was simply playing way too much. It sucks because at the time all i wanted to do was play baseball. I loved the game. But looking back at it, i should have taken the winter off to play basketball or something else. It would have been good developmentally for overall athleticism. And it would have saved me a lot of pain and grief. Kids shouldn’t have to do PT from overuse at such a young age.
How do you change that though? If NBA is the goal, you’re going to be at a disadvantage compared to another kid that is more practiced so you have no choice but to do the same.
Seems like the video creator was suggesting more diverse training movements, which multi-sport athletes tend to get but players only playing basketball probably don’t.
Think someone like SGA showcases a good amount of mobility and flexibility in his off-season work outs.
Picking up Tennis/Boxing in the off-season would likely increase longevity of NBA players due to a lot of similar body usages.
Also, if SGA wasn’t doing those other sports, he would most likely be in the gym playing basketball
It’s been shown before that having a multi-sport at a amateur/pro-am level whilst also being a pro in a single sport, can be done by singular athletes. Jim Thorpe being a great example, coincidentally also from Oklahoma. Bo Jackson being another.
enforce calling illegal screens, carrying and traveling
players can’t move as fast and as freely when they’re not allowed to take 6 steps without dribbling
Fundamentals exist for a reason.
It’s the assumption that this manner of AAU basketball where a kid plays for their schools team most weekdays, practice, then 4 AAU games a day each weekend is somehow the best way to produce good players. It’s not, it’s a way to like the pockets of these AAU people. A number of people have said that this has diminished the quality of player they become by the time they get to college. Too much wear and tear, and an incentive to play a selfish iso heavy style to get stats and go up the high school player rankings.
The Euro schedule is producing fantastic players that also know how to play team ball. Way more focus on practice, playing within a system, and way less official games played. Despite the league being dominated by foreign players it should be more noteworthy that none of them are considered selfish players despite high usage.
Game theorists salivating rn.
Some sort of legislation against how the AAU works I suppose. Alternatively, perhaps the NBA investing into its own version of youth basketball that doesn’t promote horrible training and game schedules.
Exactly. You can’t properly have this conversation without discussing youth basketball.
“What our orthopedics are telling us,” Silver says, “is they’re seeing wear-and-tear issues in young players that they didn’t used to see until players were much older.” Players, they say, are physically broken down by the time they reach the NBA.
“What our orthopedics are telling us,” Silver says, “is they’re seeing wear-and-tear issues in young players that they didn’t used to see until players were much older.”
Players, they say, are physically broken down by the time they reach the NBA.
Not sure if it’s the same, but I know high school baseball pitcher-only kids are getting tommy john surgery at like 16 years old.
Cycling has a somewhat similar issue there too: super lean to the point they’re becoming osteopenic in their 20s.
My friend’s son played D1 baseball and had Tommy John surgery at 18.
It is a major factor and there are studies discussing AAU’s involvement. Also affecting it, is sports specialization is starting a lot younger for kids. Which in causing negative affect by developing other muscles that would be stronger if they were playing 1-2 other sports. Parents hedge there bets on one sport for there kids to succeed, but this often causes injuries in high school and college at a much higher rate then multi sport athletes.
This studies touches on it. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6805065/
What about the other 30%
Why would the mods delete this 🤡🤡🤡🤡
Big Achilles doesn’t want you to know
Hey, I play Dokkan
Delete that app. Beast Gohan meta has been over for a bit
This guy should be on ESPN
ESPN doesn’t do real content. They have to argue about hypotheticals and trash as many people as they can.
Content is expensive, trash is cheap.
Top 5 lists and info dumps for the lowest common denominator. Bam.
ESPN should just be this guy.
He’s done partnerships with the athletic at least
We’re done with ESPN. This content should be in Amazon or NBC
Top-tier content, original, informative and clear effort invested. Thanks OP.
The circle jerk in shambles.
Yeah, he’s my favorite account on TikTok. He makes these kinds of videos for every sport too, not just the NBA.
Who is he exactly? I would like to learn more.
Looks like it’s a husband/wife team-
Here’s is their website/about page: https://www.chameleonvisualcompany.com/about :
WHO WE ARE Chameleon Visual Company was founded by Riley and Claire Martin in 2024 in San Francisco, CA. Riley’s passion for bringing information to life through data visualizations began in college where he became Tableau certified and has since been the foundation of his career in San Francisco. As a lifelong sports enthusiast, it wasn’t long before he began creating data visualizations around all things sports, and with it, the commentary of others who took no interest in sports. To bridge the gap between those who knew nothing about sports and those who spent their entire Sundays yelling at the TV, he and his wife Claire created SportsBall – a weekly newsletter with the goal of breaking down the sports world & the incredible stories within it, with the hope of shedding a new light on sports that many hadn’t considered before. Chameleon was born out of demand for SportsBall “style” work but in different arenas. The sequencing, drawing, and data elements were attractive to people from all different background and industries. Whether it be medical devices, agriculture, research, you name it - the core storytelling concepts transcend the topic.
WHO WE ARE
Chameleon Visual Company was founded by Riley and Claire Martin in 2024 in San Francisco, CA. Riley’s passion for bringing information to life through data visualizations began in college where he became Tableau certified and has since been the foundation of his career in San Francisco. As a lifelong sports enthusiast, it wasn’t long before he began creating data visualizations around all things sports, and with it, the commentary of others who took no interest in sports.
To bridge the gap between those who knew nothing about sports and those who spent their entire Sundays yelling at the TV, he and his wife Claire created SportsBall – a weekly newsletter with the goal of breaking down the sports world & the incredible stories within it, with the hope of shedding a new light on sports that many hadn’t considered before.
Chameleon was born out of demand for SportsBall “style” work but in different arenas. The sequencing, drawing, and data elements were attractive to people from all different background and industries. Whether it be medical devices, agriculture, research, you name it - the core storytelling concepts transcend the topic.
OUR MISSION Our mission at Chameleon Visual Company is to provide the best data storytelling capabilities in the world. We do this by translating client data and siloed information into concise and exciting audio-visual experiences. We will provide a level of professional services that inspires clients and gives them comfort in our expertise. By illuminating customer stories that have never seen the light of day, we give opportunity to information and businesses alike. Chameleon will be the last-mile-delivery that sits on top of a stagnant warehouse of information and data.
OUR MISSION
Our mission at Chameleon Visual Company is to provide the best data storytelling capabilities in the world. We do this by translating client data and siloed information into concise and exciting audio-visual experiences. We will provide a level of professional services that inspires clients and gives them comfort in our expertise. By illuminating customer stories that have never seen the light of day, we give opportunity to information and businesses alike. Chameleon will be the last-mile-delivery that sits on top of a stagnant warehouse of information and data.
They also put out a very well-made video called “What is SportsBall?” a couple months ago
Will see a change in playstyle if the false step is wearing down the achilles faster?
Doing a split-step or stutter-step should be a good replacement without causing speed to suffer. SGA is a good proponent of this, during his burst movements, he doesn’t use a false-step but instead using a slight hop or bounce in order to change which leg is dominant, but moving laterally instead of vertically.
Think Tennis player when receiving a serve, that short hop/bounce they do to react fast enough to get their racket onto a fast serve. Similar movement is seen with SGA. Now to be fair, SGA has a pretty uniquely strong body for his size, and size matters a lot with how mobile you can be.
Going from 0 to 100 causes a lot of injuries. Watch Derrick White run. He’s always on his forefoot and toes. Guys like Shai or White are constantly under tension instead of stop/starting.
I also think a big thing is being deliberate with your movements. Look at Jokic, or Carmelo, or Pierce. They use footwork and positioning to go north-south instead of doing herky-jerk east-west stop-start stuff at a million miles an hour.
I don’t think it’s the false step specifically that is wearing down the achilles. It’s everything else, and then the false step is when you have the most tension.
I think the biggest underdiscussed thing is modern shoes, and specifically the heel to toe drop.
Kobe’s shoes were famous for great feel and quick movement because they didn’t have much of a heel, so you were close to the ground. But that means the achilles has more strain.
Foot specialists have been talking about this, but it doesn’t seem to be discussed in the basketball world much.
There’s only like two players in the league that play in zero drop shoes that I know of- Beef Stew and one of Jrue’s brothers (whichever one was on the Rockets recently, or maybe still is). They wear Xero.
Zero drops are tougher on the achilles if you aren’t used to them. When you’re used to them, it’s better for you because your tendon is strong from the extra work it has to do.
It took me 11 months to acclimate to minimalist shoes. I had tons of lower leg and foot issues for years, and everything has improved or gone away since the switch. My calves are more defined than ever too.
I think players should play in zero drop with wide toe boxes… they just can’t switch on a whim, or they’d blow their legs out. They’d need to ease into it when a season ends and acclimate over the summer.
Whenever someone talks about foot / ankle injuries in the NBA, one of the first things I think about is the changeover from high-tops to low-tops.
The newer shoes’ lack of ankle coverage is what gives the players increased flexibility and make the game more athletic. But it makes it much more likely that a player will injure something that’s not wrapped or protected. But the explosivity is what fans want, that’s what the advertisers and sponsors want, that’s what the networks want.
i had a similar thought especially when he was drawing up the 48 degree angle of the ankle.
Would a high top shoe be able to limit that and act as a guard rail against too much exertion. I know the angle was just the trigger but I guess if they lessen the range of motion through high tops, maybe it would have been less over all strain?
If you increase the drop though, you’re going to put more pressure on the knees, and then you’re going to get more knee injuries.
I feel like there’s no perfect solution, sadly.
I feel like the false step does however increase the probability of you tearing the achillies. Sure the idea is that you put the pressure onto your bum and push off from there (or so i think) but when players are tired it gets increasingly easy for you to push off from your achillies.
Not a physio guy but from a bunch of achillies injuries i’ve seen in real life it almost always seems to be something like this.
Could roll it into the travel rules, since the movement occurs before the dribble. It sucks because it diminishes the spectacle of the blow-by, but it might be worth it to help address the issue
Ngl, this puts into perspective how 1 of 1 lebron james is to have done that 8 straight finals run, 2 olympics, and regular seasons with his most serious injury up until 2018 being sore knees.
Built different.
I would love to see LeBron’s entire career on the graph he did for Tatum’s 2 long playoff runs before his rupture
He spends a lot of money on recovery and health. I know Derrick Henry does as well.
Interesting examples and obviously not everyone can do it, but I wonder if there are guys who spend millions on their health and still get chronic or bad injuries.
First thing I thought of. Truly one of the most incredible athletes of our time
Literally a machine built to play basketball
Big fan of this type of content
Def feels like one of the reasons “dynasties” don’t really happen anymore is just because of how prevalent injuries are in teams that are making deep runs year after year
While the reward is worth it there is a hidden cost to playing so many extra games / minutes YoY
That and tbf parity has gotten better due to league balance changes. NBA has done a pretty good job there imo.
Yeah the parity rules are the main reason dynasties have all but vanished, even OKC who look set on building one for the next 5 years are going to have to let go of some key pieces of the roster (seems consensus that iHart is leaving) and who knows if their replacements will end up the same
🔥🔥🔥
As someone who is recovering from multiple ACL a meniscus tears in my mid 30’s my biggest fear is when I return to playing tearing my Achilles. So on top of my PT I’m paying extra close attention my mid foot mobility and calf strength to try to avoid exploding from a flat back foot. It’s so scary how one off move can take you away for over a year. Never worried about this when I was younger playing everyday for hours a day.
Yep 32 and used to play just about every sport, then slowed down during grad school. Am now absolutely terrified of popping my Achilles trying to pick basketball back up again
Been dealing with plantar fasciitis in my left foot and my biggest fear is compensating for that by moving around in a way that puts undue stress on my calves/achilles.
The Pacers had 3 of the 8 Achilles tears last year. One in their first regular season game and one in the very last game. Shit bums me out so hard till this day.
I mean “Pace” is in their name
In a sea of AI “who is this player” I’m glad to come across some real fucking content.
Incredible content…does he post anywhere else because I don’t want to get Tiktok?
It looks like they also post their videos on YouTube and Instagram:
https://www.youtube.com/@SportsBall_Visual/shorts
https://www.instagram.com/_sportsball/
They also have a website where they sell physical prints & PDFs of these data visualizations: https://www.chameleonvisualcompany.com/productsforsale
Thanks mate appreciate it
Well I subscribed. Hopefully i remember to go watch him every couple of months because it looks like he only does shorts which won’t appear in my sub box.
Finally! I’ve wondered why there hasn’t been more talk about the “false step”. It was the sane move that caused KD’s torn Achilles too. I was guarding a guy in a pick up game who tore his achilles and it was the same move too.
It’s also what causes so many players to step out of bounds in the corners and travel after pump fakes. Coaches and trainers should be removing this motion from players’ muscle memories.
The false step is integral to driving so I don’t think you’ll ever see players eliminate it from their skill set. Like the video says, the underlying cause is the workload and weakened tendon over time, not the actual false step which triggers the rupture
Great video, especially pointing out the cumulative damage
Submitting this as an anti AI slop argument and why generative AI will never replace good content
No mention of Thetis dipping players in the River Styx while holding them by the heel?
Has anyone found a correlation with wearing 0?
I maintain that a major factor is all these modern stepbacks and sidesteps accumulating. Decel eurosteps too. Kids growing up in other eras played basketball nonstop, that isn’t a new phenomenon. A guy like LeBron was playing HS, AAU, pickup, etc., some form of basketball almost every day.
We were not going full speed forward and stepping back or to the side on one foot over and over in the 2000s when I was playing. These little separation moves add up at the youth level.
Really like this.
Here is their youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SportsBall_Visual/featured
I just subscribed to give them some encouragement. They don’t have many subscribers yet.
They have 456k followers on Instagram and 276k on TikTok, but still, they definitely deserve more recognition
This is great. Awesome for visual learning. Thanks
It’s a lot of reasons. We need to change how shoes and manufactured first and foremost tho or else any other changes we make to fix the issue won’t matter
Could make a madatory standardized brace that limits ankle flex to safe levels, since they always end up taping the shit out of them anyways. I feel that this would be more realistic than the NBA ever messing with the shoe cartel
Man these graphics are fucking satisfying!
The possessions per game went up because of the 14 second shot clock reset on offensive rebounds versus 24.
I fucked up my Achilles 3 years ago and despite having seen multiple orthopedics, now I when I actually understand why it happened. Thank you so much for posting this
Lit
Not really related to this post but I love this dudes content
Awesome video 👏 👏 👏
Thanks, I’ll go die
That was satisfying to watch.
82 games is too many games for a regular season. For the health of the players, they need to drastically reduce that number
https://youtu.be/pxlMGk2xUPA?si=ERVogMvTU3tm4Mns
Followed. Amazing trailer fit the channel btw
repetitive loads…heh
I blame Steve Kerr
Dribble handoffs
Here’s a link to the tiktok video: https://www.tiktok.com/@__sportsball/video/7577805568358747406
What I got from this was that for all the talk of pace, the mid 80’s had a higher pace and fewer injuries
Higher pace but think about the difference in playstyles. Someone else made a good comment about this in this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1pcm1hw/sportsball_why_achilles_tears_have_spiked_in_the/nryt7v6/
Yeah pace was similar but the game looked like this.
The game is just entirely different and the guards today are 10+ pounds heavier on average than back then.
https://youtu.be/b9d8pS9sWJY?si=kuvl6_FrmqHNeIA5&t=93
Feet are locked into clunky blocks. No feedback loop from the souls which leads to failures further up the chain
Dr. Brian Sutterer, beside himself, begging (thru texts) for drawing lessons.
Naw….Medications and supplements that they’re not disclosing.
Repetitive loads
Why you gotta use Hali?😭 Reliving it all over again now
Teams ignoring calf injuries.
Jon Bois esque I love it
but what about shoes??
Can confirm, thats exactly how I did it
Fuck yeah nerd shit. Love me some graphs and charts.
All the AAU trainers didn’t plan much in the health care and growth of top prospects. Everyone involved pushed them to gain sponsorships and bypass collegiate experience. In hindsight, would they have done anything different to circumvent the constant wear and tear for the next years?
Ballin video
Cheap Nike shoes.
We need more of these types of posts.
It all goes down to wear and tear. The AAU circuit then entering an extremely fast paced and run-and-stop style ledge will add a ton of strain.
There’s also the whole thing about how modern basketball shoe soles are so cushioning that kids who grew up wearing them have weaker connective tissue because they had less high impact movement growing up. The shoes let them play more games, but fewer games with higher impact on their developing legs may make kids grow up to have more resilient legs
This is incredible. As a visual learner I need every injury explained to me like this
Playing with calf soreness is a massive issue and a real risk
/r/dataisbeautiful
Seems like since we know an ankle angle past 48° can pop a weakened Achilles then we could develop a shoe/insert that would limit that range of motion.
Teams could also spring for imaging two or three times a year to keep track of degradation.
What a cool and original way to visually represent a an essay. Curious if the author is also the graphic artist.
The problem is the athleticism required to play in modern day game.
Pace and all that bullshit is irrelevant when guys were moving like molasses and just jacking up random shots.
Nowadays players are significantly more athletics, can stop on a dime, jump out of the gym and make a cut on a napkin while still having the same joints/tendons as the guys in the 80s.
The training/athleticism outpaced the human body so the current load is destroying players.
Sure 80s had big player but none of them moved like Wemby, nor Kevin Durant.
Hell a Jason Tatum-like player would be a freak in the 80s basketball, Scottie was considered a freak athlete and Jason, who isn’t known for his athleticism, still matches him and is a much better ball handler and shooter on top of it.
This is not complete analysis, Tatum played how many years of aau circuits 3-5 games a day; that always missing from these analysis is the communalitvie effect of industrialization of youth sports
He did mention the “early repetitive load from youth basketball” at the end, but I suppose he could’ve highlighted that more
This is crazy if true
I know it’ll never happen but I would really prefer less games a season. I can’t be assed to care about games when the players themselves don’t.
One reason the NFL is more popular is because even a regular season game can have huge implications on playoff and draft position.
Once a week is fine for me, but once again, that’s less money and they’ll never do it.
Would also fix the whole stars “load managing” throughout the year. I would never pay to go to a NBA regular season game if it was just to see a certain player.
Like I could technically go to every Hawks game and potentially never see Lebron play meaningful minutes in a game. That’s insane to me.
Does heel drop and overly grippy shoes add to the issues?
When a shoe gives a little when starting and stopping doesn’t it act as a pressure release valve a little and decrease the torque put on tendons and ligaments? Sacrificing grip might tire out stabilizing muscles and lead to less quick cuts but overly grippy shoes do seem like it could be contributing to the issue.
Bball shoes seem to have a lower heel drop, I also wonder if adding a bit more height in the heel would help as it would decrease the distance the heel must go before contacting the ground. This change would increase the risk of rolled ankles though.
Great content. It’s only facts tho. No thesis.
Heavy isometrics particularly knee bent to strengthen your tendon. That’s what everyone is missing.
Doing this against objects that are immovable.
Any calf strain is obviously a weakening in the structure considering your calves are heavily involved in Achilles
pretty elaborate and beautiful way of saying absolutely nothing
blaming work load did Kawhi Leonard sponsor this just say what it really is steroids
Weirdly not noted with all this data is that the most recent string of achellies injuries have followed players playing through a calf injury. Likely that extra compensation to not bother the calf is the main driving force of the injury.
Damn why did he have to use Hali. Reminds me of not seeing a solid Game 7 performance from him. Breaks my heart that the answer to that “What if?” moment is now lost in the ether
Tatum was drafted as an important piece on an already good team, he got a lot of game hours put onto those feet since the jump, and lead a few playoff cumulative stats for his age.
EDIT: Honestly I think a lot of the training advancements have just dialed in a few very specific, game-critical movements that are focused on to put a lot of hours into to get better at. We saw the same thing with Kobe, just later on in his career. The commitment leads to improvement, but the body just isn’t built to grow stronger after a certain amount of load is put on specific tendons and ligaments.
I stopped the video when he said Tatum’s total games played with 179. Looked back on MJ and Pippen because they were on the dream team played in 3 straight finals with 324 games played. They actually practiced more than today’s players. It’s not usage as much as it is movement and lack there of.
You’re making art out of trauma here, man
1stThe main thing that is left out is that if you don’t have full flexibility in your calf or hamstrings, then that is when you will rupture it trying to perform the same movements. The 2nd of a back to back, or on a busy week of games will mean you cant recover fully. Either your muscle tears or the calf, and that first sprint step us at such an acute angle the tendon is taking that load.
After reading more comments people seem to think tendons are like joints- this isnt true and you can load tendons heavy multiple times a day, every day to increase the strength. NBA players just arent loading tendons in a heavy isometric at that end range of motion that requires the knee to be past the foot.
This is a product of play style moving from the half court to transition offense during the regular season. The nba is a better product when teams are elite in the half court
I admire your ability to do this with pen and paper. Wow
My takeaway from this is Kerr was doing Tatum a favor by not having him play much during the Olympics.
Why are they pushing off with a flat foot? Coming from a track background, this looks really inefficient with acceleration mechanics in mind.
I had classes with someone that could draw anatomical pictures like that. I was always jealous. It had to make studying more interesting and stick better.
Hard to pay attention to the info when the drawings are so good
Most aesthetic video I’ve ever watched