time to leave AAU ball in 2017 before we get 6th men consisting of half the all-nba teams

Super interesting read, checks out too

The game is wildly different, even to as recent as 2015 it’s fucking insane how different it is and you kind of forget even if u watched because you just get used to the present so much

I do not think this is sustainable, tall ass humans are not made to do this, there’s a reason players could play 45 mins per game in the 80s/90s, the amount of movement was hilarious bad, player sat around holding their cock doing nothing while one guy isos and posts up

There’s 50000 actions u have to defend now with 30 feet of floor spacing, 5 guys who can shoot, 4-5 people who can handle basically it’s fucking insane

While I don’t disagree with the general statement in this article, Gary Vitti has the most rational explanation for why these injuries happen more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjTU0xQLdRE

You see this across all sports btw, not just basketball - and it’s touched on in this article, but I don’t think it gives it the correct context and blames the tooling (most of which I think is stupid as shit, like throwing weighted balls), instead of blaming the fact that we are taking these intensive exercises and doing them from the age of 7-8, so naturally you will see those injuries manifest themselves earlier and earlier than previous generations. You can argue whether that is better or worse for the sport (better athleticism at the expense of longevity), but that is the reality of the situation.

Also, the advancement in medical science barely gets discussed in terms of how survivorship bias makes us feel like injuries happen more, but 25-30 years ago, you tear your achilles and your career is pretty much over; just look at Kijana Carter. Now you can come back from that and sure you can aggravate or re-injure it, but at least you have the opportunity to do that, that didn’t exist before.

The conclusion of the article doesn’t line up with the rest of the article to me. It basically calls for the shortening of the season, but all of the research and evidence in the body of the piece points to the proliferation of new moves that have become prevalent in the league. The step back, the euro step, the change of direction moves, that happen off one leg.

It’s not as if injuries are only happening in the playoffs, they start in November and December. If you take the massive step of shortening the season, injuries could still be a huge problem.

I think you could potentially kill two birds with one stone by just calling traveling, carrying, offensive fouls, etc. stricter like they used to. People continually complain about how those rules aren’t enforced, and they allow way more of the dangerous change of direction and faster moves than would otherwise be possible.

this part blew my mind

“The calf muscle has pretty short fibers, all things considered,” Lieber says. When the ankle rotates and the knee extends at the same time, it puts immense strain on the muscle.

That strain is amplified for bigger players. “My calf and Shaq’s calf have about the same length of fibers,” Lieber says, “but he just has maybe 10 times what I have.” The fibers don’t scale with the body. The bones—the levers—do. “So a bigger person, when they rotate their knee joint or their ankle joint 20 degrees, they stretch their muscles relatively more.”

It’s Achilles tendons now but back when everyone used to use jump stops it was knees.

The game is just substantially rougher on the body today. People talk about how “rough and tough” the game used to be but in comparison to today it’s a cakewalk. The game used to be soooooo stagnant. Guys are covering like 2-3x as much ground per game today as they did in the past

I think a big part of the puzzle is in how the game is called. If MJ tried a lot of the moves used by today’s players, he would be called for a travel/carry/double dribble. Allowing the “gather step” to include basically unlimited steps has led players to adopt more movement off one leg. Obviously it’s just one piece to a complicated puzzle, but I think actually calling the game correctly would improve some of the injury outcomes

It’s because kids destroy their bodies nowadays playing AAU year round when they aren’t playing varsity. Because they don’t play multiple sports anymore, the same muscle groups in basketball become over specialized and wear out. Kids are coming into the NBA with the wear and tear of guys that were in their prime back in the day.

The obvious and underdiscussed reason for these injuries becoming much more prevalent is the rampant use of PED’s throughout the nba but the league does not want to open the ped pandoras box

Great article. League needs to shorten the season desperately because each year the playoffs are decided by injuries.

I mean it’s probably a combination of multiple things. Covering more ground due to the spaced out nature of the game, More one footed jumping, over training from AAU and honestly probably folks wearing shoes more than back in the day, it’s probably only relevant to players from the south but going around barefoot is really good for your kinetic chain and such, back when nba players grew up poor I’m sure it was more common.

they should shorten the court for a season and see what happens

Yes but I’d say modern basketball in general not just nba

1. NBA pace is incredibly hard on the body- the league needs to decrease games and remove back 2 backs, it would result in a better product and less injuries

2. Players are racking up ridiculous mileage before they play in college, much less the nba. AAU system and demands are degrading players health from a young age

3. Connected to the above, sports specialization has had a tremendously negative impact on kids. Kids used to play 3-4 sports a year. Basketball year round isn’t necessarily the best thing for youth

4. There’s a growing belief from coaches that practice and strength and training methods are out of balance for basketball pros. Kobe testing his Achilles decade ago at 35 or however old he was is vastly different than guys like Tatum and halli suffering this in their mid 20s

It’s really up to the players and owners. Of course there will be slightly less money with less games but there are ways they can make up this lost revenue while also providing a superior product for the fans

It’s the damn Kobe repros or whatever they’re called

Start calling travels and carries and stop favouring the offensive player so much. The pace has gotten ridiculous.

Play them fewer minutes per game somewhere around 25 minutes.

I’d honestly bet it’s shoe technology driving these injuries. It sounds crazy but it’s not just athletes or the US that has seen an increase in these soft tissue injuries in the legs.

Thinking Basketball made a great video on a similar concept, in reference to the 65 game rule. Definitely give it a watch if you’re interested!

The only thing that really makes sense to me, is shoes

The massive volume of 3 point shooting is the core variable driving this, and it’s a self reinforcing feedback mechanism.

Players better at shooting, so bigs suddenly need to be able to guard the peremiter.

Bigs playing on the peremiter, and 3 pointers bouncing off the rim with more energy means a wider spread of rebound trajectories.

Picking up a rebound 20 feet away from the basket is usually a recipe for a transition scoring opportunity, often an open transition 3, which is considered the smart play most of the time now. Sometimes you get a couple of these possessions back to back because nobody has had time to get into position. Also the 3 being a lower raw percentage shot means there are more missed shots, so this happens even more often.

All this means more pressure to get up and down the court and unexpectedly change direction on a dime. Sometimes I even find it exhausting to watch, honestly. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to play like that for 82 games