I’ve heard a somewhat common narrative that blames American youth sports for this. Specifically, the trend over the past few decades of kids specializing and playing just one sport, but playing it much more.

I’ve also heard about a trend of rotator cuff injuries in Women’s College Volleyball. The thought being that the repetitive motion of serving, and especially girls who played pure volleyball all of high school builds up wear and tear.

AAU circuit intensity is the NBA example. All those weekends of back to back games, from age 13-18, adds up

On this subject, in women’s sports I was surprised to learn that ACL tears (especially in Soccer) are far more frequent due to the anatomical differences between the groups. It can be as much as 2x - 8x more likely than men. https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/why-women-have-more-acl-injuries-than-men. We just had a baby girl, and I was thinking about getting her into soccer in the future.

there’s a lot of pressure on players to play even when their Achilles is on the verge of tearing. Both KD and Halliburton were dealing with tendonitis and played anyway because it was the Finals

Great article I read on this topic: https://www.theringer.com/2026/05/14/nba/nba-injuries-leg-calf-hamstring-achilles-data

Long story short, a lot of it is the increase in explosive lateral movements on the floor paired with a general increase in play to play intensity causing fatigue to soft tissues.

Sprinting around, cutting off screens constantly is not great for your lower legs, and step backs, with their combo of knee torsion and front loading on the plant foot are surprisingly really fucking bad for your calves, hamstrings and Achilles.

That’s where the nfl is at already

I’d rupture my achilles for millions of dollars but I draw the line at CTE

Players are covering way more ground than they ever did which is the number one issue. Sure they’re playing fewer games than in other eras, but they’re putting more miles on their body and specifically straining their joints, ligaments, and tendons. Extending out to the 3 point line, a lot more movement off the ball, and a faster pace make offense harder on players’ bodies. Plus on defense you’re chasing guys over screens, doing a lot of stopping and starting to contest at 3 point line, sending help, flashing a double team then recovering back to your man, etc. People can argue “oh the NBA isnt as physical as it used to be how are these guys getting injured” the injuries aren’t broken bones they’re ligament and tendon injuries which are much worseZ

Track fan here. There’s actually been an explosion of top performances due to shoe tech taking a big jump around 2019. Athletes all say the biggest reason for the better performances isn’t that the shoes make them faster, it’s that the shoes keep them healthy, which lets them stack more training without setbacks due to injury.

Also more athletes are cross training (bike, swim) to reduce the impact stress. In 2023 Grant Fisher missed the national team in the 10k in May due to a stress fracture, biked like a maniac all summer, then came back and broke the American record in the 3k in September.

So injuries are actually a lot less common now than they were just a few years ago. Mostly due to technology though.

But first, the 2006 redraftables

A torn UCL used to end careers. Tommy John surgeries prolong them. Pitchers throw harder today but the workload is lower than in the past and pitchers pitch effectively for years. NBA players had leg injuries all the time, but careers for star players were much shorter.

I ran cross country & track, this is more of an observation but stress fractures have seemed to be going up as runflation/trackflation has increased (long story, but basically high schoolers are running world records and times only pros could really do years ago)

Basically, yes I think so. I know significantly less about baseball so I’ll stay away from that.

But in the NBA, the less explosive you are as an athlete the less likely it appears you will suffer a dramatic injury.

Achilles injuries were far more rare back in the day but let’s take a look at the type of player that most consistently received this injury:

Elgin Baylor: 1965

Isiah Thomas: 1994

Dominique Wilkins: 1992

Grant Hill: 2003

Kobe: 2013

Brandon Jennings: 2015

Kevin Durant: 2019

John Wall: 2018

Isaiah Jackson: 2024

Tatum: 2025

This isn’t every player who has ever torn their Achilles, but it is the majority of them. And the thing they all have in common is how explosive they are as athletes. It’s happening more often now because athletes like this are more common than ever before.

Sports medicine has advanced to such a degree that we can teach athletes to be more explosive than is physiologically safe.

We will learn how to strengthen bones, ligaments, tendons, etc. just like we currently know how to improve muscle mass. We also will know when is it too much and be able to test for micro tears and other damage not currently seen.