He was at his worst then injury wise with both knees

Yea he did the crazy thing is to if he was healthy just by himself I think we could’ve won that series I mean we went six so it’s not to absurd

As wild as it may seem, he had 2 bad knees in that series lol: this issue (the PFPS) was in his right, and the hyperextension in his left.

Any doctor wants to avoid surgery when possible, especially for an issue like this that tends to heal with just rest and conservative measures.

He had two bad knees against the spurs in the playoffs

He did.

We all know this.

This is frustrating injury management.

He was playing on one leg against you guys. You really don’t remember that?

I’m pretty sure he had a bad knee against us in the playoffs too

If he already had that issue since the playoffs I don’t understand why he didn’t commit to surgery during the off-season.

anyways his ppg keeps going up every season lol. his 3 point shooting is also just fabulous.

The knee probably contributed to the weight. It’s all tied together.

Kobe was very active off-ball, it’s just the spacing was so congested.

That’s kinda what the Blazers are doing. Not quite that quickly, but we’ve been subbing our stacked deck of guards around throughout the game. Micah Nori has been such a breath of fresh air as a coach. Only 2 games in, but so far its been great to see.

And their AAU leagues have them play multiple games in a day constantly

I imagine the opposite of this is actually helping Yaxel because compared to other players he has played a lot less games then the others. Like less then 120 games across college? Dude is coming in with a lot less wear and tear.

That Baxter Holmes article is truer and truer every season.

Guys were growing up poor and playing on concrete in chuck Taylors bro. They just weren’t having to run and jump like crazy due to long rebounds and fast breaks from endless 3’s

Load management was always a thing. They just used to do it on the court

Go look at the pace the game was played in the 60s

“No it’s because I personally don’t like the game as much.”

Yup, you’re exactly right. The centers and power forwards used to just post up or stick around the pain. Imagine all 30 teams with centers who don’t shoot beyond the free throw line at most. Now you gotta chase all 5 players around since (almost) everyone can shoot.

https://www.theringer.com/2026/05/14/nba/nba-injuries-leg-calf-hamstring-achilles-data

This one is specific to a certain type of injury but it certainly seems like a significant trend

Probably not. That’s 8 less minutes of having on-court advertising and mid broadcast betting. The cynical money aspect of it aside it would also mess with comparing players who play 40 minute games versus 48 minute games. Think about how toxic the Jordan vs Lebron debate is and imagine if Lebron only played 40 minute games for his career. I don’t think the league has made such a drastic change to the game since the introduction of the 3 point line.

This is not Ant’s first season in the league lol

All of these players also played in past seasons. The wear and tear on your body doesn’t magically reset when the season ends.

Too long

I’m being sarcastic. It’s not surprising most of the players who got injured are coming off injury last year or coming off teams who actively tanked down the season. The people who put a lot of effort conditioning in the off season really shows.

Man making more money than ever while wanting guys to do less work than ever as well.. what a world

Yes it is. You can tell by the quotation marks.

Yup

Shaq also waits til he gets to work to poop. He just like me fr

It’s a lifestyle

Scottie pippen “ i’m not going to fuck my summer up”

Yes. Shaq had an arthritic toe. (Still does).

After the 2002 championship, doctors diagnosed hallux rigidus and bone spurs and gave him some options, including inserting a pin into the toe

Phil asked him to get the invasive surgery immediately after the postseason ended and take the 3 extra month rehab

Shaq instead delayed till training camp and got a more minor surgery in 2002, shaving the bone spurs.

He gave that quote. He missed time, it hurt team chemistry , he wasn’t as mobile coming back that next year, (though surgery helped, there’s recovery time) and the toe continued to deteriorate

Shaq now says not taking phil’s advice was a mistake he regrets

For everyday normal people, sure.

For professional athletes who make millions upon millions of dollars, nah. Their off-season is company time.

If he should have, he would have. He is losing a ton of money this way as he won’t be super max eligible

There are plenty of things to hate on Shaq for, and this is another one.

These guys are getting paid millions to be in shape year-round. The off-season is company time.

Normalize work life boundaries.

For the ultra-rich?

I can. Selfish and entitled, the rest of us work year around for 0.1% of the pay and we’re supposed to agree that 3-5 months off every year when you’re paid millions is somehow not company time?

Had to say the same thing above: people are really eager to sign other people up for surgery lol

This one I have had done myself. It’s pretty minor and I got it to clean up scar tissue inside my knee that was causing sharp pains.

I don’t know what his is, but I assume since he has access to much better medical team than I did for rehab, he will heal up just fine

Also, correct me if im wrong, but removing damaged cartilage make things better in the short term, but weakens the knee overall.

So it’s a last resort surgery.

If it’s a meniscus tear you wanna keep it if you can. Much more force on the knee, risk of arthritis and reinjury with menisci gone. Definitely that way for at least a couple other sinewy bits too, we can get rid of it but if it’s doing it’s job you’re better off.

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/anthony-edwards-reveals-why-took-182758824.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAE6Yh9zrFbxupUpZwaS0o9n0hKONijF0QO4hHvbFXKjpNZLvSXJa5d078bp5kiUpnGofGGDdNwuv9o14hSODWp3kHdqmCGjp2CPN0N-qqNt2nS9v91q6et_D5mXwA-YETaeyxQBCnNa9agXMiRHIz9k8_15PNP9JKXvzcaIMhkj9

C Hines and Javier are Minnesota Timberwolves staffers

Really sucks. He’s one of my favorite non-Spur players in the league to watch (and he scares the hell out of me when we do play him…he has our number)

Upon research, you’re right. The left knee was hyper extended. Then wtf you don’t usually need a surgery from runners knee right??

STOP THAT RIGHT NOW

Yooo you got some more of that hopium?

Don’t I wish

bro forgot Jerome shot ¹⁄₁₄ in a 1 point loss to indiana in the playoffs

The Cavs thinking “James Harden will help us in the playoffs” was always fucking hilarious

Luka not hitting 65 games because he hurts his hamstring in January from some total random accident is basically a guarantee already

Luka should have won one already people know that the voters hate him so don’t even bother mention his name anymore.

This would be the right move but you’re right it’ll never happen because the league will never sacrifice short term profits even if it might help long term profits to create a better product where every regular season game matters more and there’s no “load management” due to frequency of the games.

People who go “I don’t get it, they used to play 82 games back in the 2000’s, why can’t they do a measly 65” don’t get the science and how the league has changed. The players are better, bigger, stronger and faster than ever. The pace is much higher than what it was like 20 to 30 years ago. They’re making harder cuts to get open or play tight defense. The games are happening too frequently and given the NBA doesn’t also want to extend the season length, the only solution that addresses the core problem is reducing the amount of games.

That’s probably not a bad idea, but I think the other problem in modern sports is that guys nowadays just go from full blown to cold turkey to full blown again. I feel like in the past dudes would just play all year just to play, but they’re worth so much money these days that they can’t actually play the game in a serious way for 5 straight months and even training camp and pre-season they’re not really putting it out there. And then they try and go 100% from the get go. I feel like football has the same problem. No one wants to risk their star in a meaningless game injury, but at the same time I think we gotta consider ways to get guys actual reps before the season starts rather than just throwing them out there. Workouts just don’t simulate the same wear and tear.

Absolutely should be. Season should be shortened to like 60-65 games too. Owners never doing it

They could get rid of them if the season was the same length as the NHL. The NHL plays 84 games and has quite a bit less b2bs

Truke

I doubt they would ever go for playing fewer games, but would tacking like a month onto the season and eliminating B2Bs be feasible?

Research has shown more rest doesn’t help with this, and in fact can exacerbate these injuries.

The real solution is to introduce new rules that reward or even force slower play. Longer shot clock, restructuring points to be ³⁄₄ instead of ²⁄₃ so that inside play is encouraged, even allowing the defense to play harder so that players are discouraged to run at full speed into the paint without thinking.

The fact that there hasn’t even been indications of high-level discussions about this is the most damning, IMO. Like, injuries anecdotally seem to be on the rise and there’s been no indication over the last few years of a willingness to change the schedule or reduce the number of B2Bs.

who are you talking to? the players don’t want to get rid of back to backs because they want their money. speak to them about it.

Increase the full time roster count to 15 and add another round for the draft. Clearly we need more players to rotate

the season needs to be 62 games

Yes.

Even if it’s worse for the product the owners still choose money , long run consequences be damned.

But the money! The money!

We need to extend the damn season and only play 2 games a week, go soccer style. Makes no sense to have a short but super fucking intense season.

So the pace?

I keep watching games wondering why the hell is everyone playing so damn fast. I moss the 2000’s- early 2010’s.

That would not have made the injury not happen. Having surgery for an injury due to basketball in the offseason is still an injury due to basketball.

I sincerely doubt it, respectfully. That amount of running and jumping for anybody is just absolutely nuclear on your knees and soft tissue as a whole.

This entire thing is why I get so pissed when people say the league is soft or whatever. Dude these guys’ tendons are being ground to fucking dust.

Oh please, an average size humans can’t even finish a division 15 rec league season with 12 games without injuries

Because the other guys fucking suck? Have you not thought about this for more than 10 seconds?

That’s why when the old heads talk about players being soft these days I just roll my eyes. Like yeah, the game was more physical in certain ways, but it’s absolutely more physical in a number of ways nowadays.

They need to move the 3 point line back to where it’s really challenging. That will slow it down some.

The players don’t want less games, the owners don’t want less games…I’m not even sure if the fans want less games.

we stay at 82 games because Adam $ilver

So teams need to adapt a slower pace, games don’t need to be shortened

The amount of violent stop start motions needed to play modern NBA defence is crazy

And no one can hide on D now

Quite a few notable European/foreign NBA players like Luka have a youth soccer background. The lack of varied sports disciplines and youth sports specialization here are blamed as one of the reasons for the injury rash.

That varied body training might play a part in why we don’t see it as much with them.

I’m a firm believer in the importance of being a multi sport athlete. These kids should not be playing basketball year round.

Gallinari and Porzingis off the top of my head are two euro guys who have been plagued by injuries, but then you also have guys like Rudy Gobert who is pretty much an iron man

Euro club system is seasonal, AAU is a travesty.

You’d need to completely revamp and revolutionize youth sports in North America.

And IT SHOULD be revolutionized. The current system is atrocious for any team sports.

Its not just AAU. Athletes strength train differently now and children specialize in year round sports now opposed to diversifying what your muscles and joints get into. Multi sport athletes have become almost extinct. Playing other sports and diversifying how you condition yourself is integral to health as well.

Okay well logically let’s invent some new steroids/s

Yep all the dribble moves KD, Giannis, Embiid do would have been carries in the 80s and 90s

I mean they are certainly more athletic today, or at least the baseline for athleticism is way higher. There’s more people that are pursuing sports which creates a better selection pool, and we have a better understanding in how to train athleticism. Players from the 50s may have been able to jump and run like guys now with modern day understandings of biomechanics and trading philosophies, but they didn’t have that.

The average combine vertical has gone up about 2 inches since 2001. Even if we assume there was no gap between the late 1900s and 2001, they are jumping higher now for sure. It might be tougher for basketball, but the average 40 time in football is about .15 seconds faster over the last 29 years, average fastball velo is up more the 4 mph etc. Biologicially there’s probably a chance that older players would have been able to reach this level, but modern day training is certainly more optimized along with better nutrition plans to reach these levels.

I’ve been downvoted in this sub so many times for saying that athletes aren’t better today than a few decades ago. I think NBA fans are more likely to not believe it because the game looks so different but it’s primarily due to rule changes and massively increased skill unlocking the inherent athleticism (see video of MJ failing to do an eastbay multiple times while 13 years olds today can do it). If sport science was truly increasing peak athleticism we’d see Olympic records consistently broken YoY & yet high and long jump have stood for decades.

Unintented double lol.

I only meant flying and that type of travel in general. Not just NBA players. Youth too. Recovery time is not being taken seriously.

That’s what I’m saying. That’s some MJ shit lol wtf

Probably tried rehabbing it as surgery sucks and doesn’t guarantee anything. Unfortunately doesn’t seem to have worked

Thats my question too. Why tf wasnt this addressed in the offseason?

Supposedly it’s runners knee. Standard of care is to try rest and pt first, surgery only if it doesn’t respond to that.

what exactly do you think you’re replying to?

You think you’d be a play-in team? nah, wolves are great this year. i can’t see you falling past 6. Ant is what propels you into contention, the rest of the team is still a playoff caliber team

honestly i think yall will still get a top 6 seed. the top end teams in the west are weaker than a lot of years with okc’s injuries especially. honestly, prior to this news, i thought the wolves had as good a shot as anyone at the 1 seed. that won’t happen now but top 4 or 5 wouldn’t surprise me at all.

Do guys come back fully healthy? This seems like it’s just going to be him having knee issues forever

GSW and the other shit teams would appreciate it if you guys stayed above the play-ins… assuming we make them anyway.

We are NOT a play-in team, even without Ant. Most ridiculous statement I’ve heard all year round. You should watch more games, look at our bench.

I don’t think this is a play-in roster. Ayo, TJ, and even Bones can all sort of make up the pieces of an Anthony Edwards Exodia.

Nitrous injection to a LaMelo Ball offense

Definitely - though his defense is exploitable.

So hard to tell with Achilles injuries. I’d guess All-Star Break at the earliest, but medical advances on achilles tears are crazy.

I trust our medical staff. I think they actually overruled Ant on this one because they noticed how much it was impacting him on the court. Ant wants to play 100% of the time, so I doubt he was the one calling the shots here.

We are, he’s getting surgery 4 games into the season

This is playing it safe, we have a top tier medical staff

Welp lol

Why is everyone spelling Precious like that

I dont know, I can see it pretty easily. There were some assholes really happy with the JDub injury.

It started as a joke parodying fans who feel the need to announce their fandom before saying injuries are bad

There are A LOT of people in the world.

Charlotte is the basis of your opinion, but that’s not indicative of the player himself.

Ant is the top scoring option, but it was a toss between the two as prospects. The timberwolves shouldn’t be scary if their best player is out, but you could say that about every team in the league.

Playing regular season basketball, you won’t see any of the talking heads speak about an emergency in Minnesota. They talk about how the focus is going to shift to Melo to steer the ship.

It’s Lamelo with Rudy Gobert, Kuminga, Jaden Mcdaniels w/ Bones and Ayo off the bench.

That’s two (2) all stars and a fringe third

that Minnesota weather is like a infinite cold compress. He gone be aight

Having five 20 point per game scorers garnered the coveted 9th seed, and a play-in loss.

Essentially this same roster, swapping Lamelo for Randle, has been to the conference finals in ²⁄₃ seasons.

I wouldn’t have even responded if you hadn’t been so definitive with your opinion lol

Can’t be picky.

Ethical ass

Don’t worry. Dolan is gonna trade KAT at the deadline.

I mean he did, scored 45 on the opening night after his playoffs injury.

that’s actually generally how arthroscopic surgeries work. Of course the particularities of the arthroscopy changes how things pan out, but in general the timeline to return to full activity for normies like us is ~2 months, which can easily be accelerated for guys like Ant who have an entire medical team dedicated to him. Hell, RWIII returned after like 3 weeks’ recovery for arthroscopy in the 2022 playoffs and could hold up (now, that was certainly a bad idea and I was very disappointed the Celtics did that, as it clearly had longer term impacts on RWIII’s career).

The longer timeline that’s already been announced has me suspecting that this isn’t just a typical clean-up procedure, and they might actually be getting into some of the things causing the persistent inflammation with the runner’s knee, but I think Ant will, in the shorter term (i.e. next 1-3 years) basically be his old self after this surgery. Now, this certainly puts a lower limit on his prime, sadly.

Maybe not practicing with the same intensity as in a real game so it felt better than it was. Or it flared up again and they want to do it early in season

Its probably one of those lingering injuries that only flairs up when you are playing intense.

So he probably felt fine all summer.

Him and Myles Garrett.

Super odd

That means our inevitable bad luck will be that much worse. We’re all the waiting with baited breath to see what will happen lol

we will be the 2 seed and lose in the first round, because of course

That brings more dread than comfort to Minnesota sports fans.

With Kyler at QB. That defense has been doing wonders for them. Everyone and their Mama will be betting against them in the first round of the playoffs though.

Both of his knees were messed up during the playoffs if you remember

Except these injuries are happening right at the start of the season. Less games doesn’t actually help with that. The ramping up from nothing would still occur.

To do that means less money for the players. Which they would never agree to. It’s too late. Players will miss seasons with injuries, and overall it just means a worse product for the fans.

Fine. The way you need to utilize athleticism has changed to wear you have to put that stress on to be successful

That is all part of athleticism

Playoff runs impact the next season. We saw that after we won the title. It’s one reason why it’s so hard to repeat.

Basketball didn’t start 4 games ago. The NBA season is grueling, year after year, especially for guys who routinely make it to the playoffs.