RJ questions the training camp and preseason regiment of today’s NBA
KG been saying this for awhile. They aren’t putting in the reps and then taking off at a sprint when the season starts.
There was that study a few months ago that found a bunch of Achilles injuries correlated with a rapid increase in minutes. And in football, ACL injuries are way more frequent in training camp, preseason and the first couple months of the season than the end. Soft tissue is not getting properly acclimated and conditioned in sports and it knocks guys out at the very beginning. The players unions have lobbied for less activity in the offseason, and this is a result.
Yep. The sudden increase in workload is a big factor in what has caused an increase in injuries in recent years. Interestingly enough, the same study found that load management does not have an effect on decreasing injury rates, likely for the same reason.
Then what’s up with the achillies injuries in the NBA playoffs?
Like they said, sudden increase in minutes and intensity. Rotations get shorter in the playoffs and lots of stars go from averaging 30-33mpg to 36-40mpg. Plus, a lot of stars rest towards the end of the season if they don’t have to worry about seeding in order to be fresh for the playoffs. Well, the achilles injuries is that backfiring.
Shits also way more explosive though. Guarding to the 3 line, driving to the rim constantly, fast breaks like a mofo.
Defensive 3 in the key and restricted area makes for explosive help defence.
It all adds up. Watch those old games again and see how much standing around there is in comparison, or at least not the extreme acceleration of today just to contest a 3 point shot.
And the tempo and offensive rating is insane now. Definitely agree and it all adds up
Plus with modern spacing and off ball movement, you’re expected to cover more distance throughout the game without being any less explosive or cutting any less hard. I would be interested in seeing how much mileage the average player covers vs. 2010.
it all adds up
Also, all the time these guys have spent pre-NBA adds up.
NBA careers are starting younger and younger. These guys are putting more strain on the bodies just to reach the NBA.
Sure, Embiid and Siakam started late, but some of these guys are starting at 5-7.
it’s not that much about the tempo, because that’s mostly straight line, it’s how much start and stop and a lateral movements that is on another level.right now, the possessions do look different: more rotation, recoveries, off ball movement, cuts
Eh. It’s faster, arguably. But let’s say it is more ‘explosive’, that still lends credence to what people have been saying for quite some time: They aren’t physically prepared to play the whole season.
And the league can’t make them because I believe the players negotiated the practice schedules.
there are experts on opposite sides of the spectrum, on this.some believe players are not properly prepared.others believe that we are at the limit for what’s possible for the human body.
No it doesn’t, it lends defense to the fact that the human body isn’t made to handle these levels of force. It’s the same reason TJS is up in baseball.
It’s cuz the pace is faster and they distance they cover is more. They probably break down even faster and we’d have a lot more injuries in practice if they practice like the guys in the 2000’s
That’s not how the human body works. If you don’t work a muscle it will not be strong.
Yeah but people getting hurt 10 games into the season like that’s the unusual part of this mess
Yeah I genuinely think proposing any other (primary) reason for the amount of injuries going on is a bit silly. I just can’t buy old heads acting like increased practice volume would somehow reduce what are largely wear and tear injuries. It feels very obvious to me if you see the nature of injuries that are occurring and time period that they have increased in frequency that this is because of the speed of the game now w increase 3pt volume.
Add in possession maxxing that leads to aggressive close outs, rebounds, fast breaks etc. and I honestly find it annoying that seemingly smart people like zach lowe have even entertained that there are other primary drivers behind this.
Think about a pitcher in baseball. You can’t expect a world class pitcher to go from the off-season where they aren’t pitching to spring training where they’re only pitching 2 innings at most and then expect them to go for 6 innings once the regular season starts.
Then think about the people you see at the gym with great physiques but wouldn’t be able to hang in a pickup game with a 40yo with a dad bod on the court.
You have to get in the reps and players have slowly cut down on their practice time.
We are in week 2 of the season. Most guys have only played 5 or 6 games so far. The games are not that explosive that guys should be getting soft tissue injuries this early into the season
I mean its not old head talk, sudden increase in work load is well known to lead to injuries. Normal people are prone to it, they start trying to get into shape from the couch and push themselves way too hard and get hurt. Athletes can suffer from the exact same thing, for the reasons RJ is talking about. The body has to be prepared for what you are doing with it, and whatever the NBA ramp up is right now is clearly absolutely fucked.
other smart people realized that correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation long ago.
I’m an epidemiologist lmao. Nothing in my comment is relying on correlation as an explanation and I pointed out several causal mechanisms for the increased pace of the game causing injuries in a bunch of different ways.
This is a great post, the tempo of the game is definitely higher these days. To add to your point tho being penalized for playing physical now requires everyone to play “hovering” defence, you’re expected to play on both ends of the floor….the boys are just over worked
Yeah. There’s so much more space now so they can run faster, explode quicker and jump higher. Bring back the low post game!
This but the medi will never say it.
Do you guys ever watch the behind the scenes stuff these guys do? My nephew is a huge Anthony Edwards fan and showed his daily routine. They’re absolutely putting in the reps and taking care of themselves holistically in ways I’m sure even KG or RJ didn’t do. The game is faster, medicinal treatments have evolved, and they’re much more cautious about long term injuries
So, yes, but also no.
The workouts and treatments are as intense and impactful as ever. No doubt about it.
But that doesn’t mean those workouts or treatments are properly preparing the human body for 40 minutes per game of high intensity basketball.
You might have the speed and strength and whatever other attributes, but if the soft tissues aren’t adapted to the workload specific to a grueling NBA game, then none of that may matter.
That’s all that’s being said.
maybe not, but remember that those older guys used to play a different game. Their experience is obviously extremely valuable, but it can’t be translated 100%.
there’s probably something off with the how some people train, but I don’t think those guys know what it is.
Exactly. I am so fucking sick of ex players and media heads acting like they have the solution to these extremely complex issues that they no nothing about. You are delusional if you think these guys aren’t rigorously training and prepping for the season.
Old guys are always gonna say they worked harder, longer, played uphill both ways, in snow…..etc.
A more recent example would be DeRozan. At least when he used to be on the Raptors, was living and breathing basketball even during the offseason.
He is now playing his 17th season and never missed less than 60 games.
Never missed or never played less than 60 games?
All his training has allowed him to play in AT LEAST 20% of the season. Pretty impressive stuff.
Missed, are you dumb he’s played more than 60 so many times
Right but he said he has never missed less than 60 games. So you’re asking the wrong person if they’re dumb, dumbass.
He’s also not a guy that ever constantly exploded to the rim from the 3 point line, defensively either. Dudes always been kinda meh there.
He’s that 90s player taking alot of middys. There is Lebron but he’s kind of an exception to every physical rule like Shaq.
But it makes sense his game would translate to being healthy today.
There is Lebron
LeBron is like Brady, they both invest a lot of money into making sure they’re bodies are in great shape. I remember a report came out that LeBron spends over $1 million annually on his body alone. That combined with LeBron being an athletic freak is why he’s been playing at a high level for so long.
You don’t remember that report because it never happened
Yes, it did.
RJ must be correct because this is the longest I have seen Perk stay quiet.
Nah Perk just got confused by the concept of playing “full speed basketball”
Nah, he was confused because there was no teleprompter to give him his response.
only shape Perk knows is the tasty torus
Perk has no skin in this staying fit game lol
it could definitely be a factor
i also think that there’s a good chance personal trainers have developed very specific exercises targetted for specific muscles for performance and they’re getting strained faster
mix that with kids playing too much these days and you probably got a long ass list of things contributing that stack up before you even get to the season length or pace of the game
Kids specializing too early and not playing multiple sports has to have an impact. Your body (at at least mine as a kid) developed more balanced strength and didn’t overwork one specific set
yeah unfortunately overcoaching across lots if not all sports leagues have led to people specialising in specific things and in general too
soccer has been a great example, a lot of people can tell the like.. creativity around the sport has gone down a lot, because they’re just pumping out players that are long and athletic that can run back and fourth to play within the system
it’s less about great players and more about great systems, players are being developed to fit in a certain box
and for the nba they don’t really practice dribbling, they don’t practice two point shots as much, it’s just 3’s and speed so you can shoot and defend
it’s not to say there’s not still very talented players but you can tell every year there’s just more and more players who can seemingly only do a single thing
it’s ironically part of the side effect of curry exploding like he did, now there’s just a bunch of rookies who literally can only shoot the 3 and they’re kinda ass at everything else, because they were told to practice that shot and that’s where like all their time and practice went into
again it’s not every player obviously, but you can definitely tell in the nba and all sports, the talent/creativity is kind of disappearing as it’s becoming very specialised
I see this a lot and would agree too much basketball early can take its toll…but what sports would these guys be splitting with? Football comes with way, way worse risks and soccer has some of the same issues in terms of knees/ankles. There’s baseball I guess but the skillset is so different that not many are going to be good enough at both to really make competitive school teams.
Baseball is still hand eye coordination and running. Also track and field and cross country. I think the bigger issue is kids in AAU play more games than college players do
Track events
You don’t have to play an actual different sport, you would just need to change up your exercise routine.
I’ve seen comments saying they make kids do too much, then there’s comments that players aren’t doing enough. It’s probably a bunch of different factors. But I’d like to know if the average NBA player is playing more or less games than in previous eras? Are careers longer or shorter? If injuries are worse than before then the numbers should show it.
Same. I always dreaded a season ending and moving onto the next sport because it was always so rough on the body to abruptly switch surfaces like that. It hurt and made me feel unathletic to start each season. But all those years of struggling through that really helps build a well balanced body.
The only sports injury I ever had was a broken ankle because I got undercut on a rebound in HS. And I played 3 sports from ages 5-18, and have stayed very active and rough on my body since then. But never anything soft tissue.
I don’t have kids but if I did I straight up would not let them specialize in one sport.
Dont forget about all the junk players eat. Just because a player looks in shape because they work out everyday, does not mean they actually eat healthy foods. When you are young especially, you can be gbbling down pizza and candy everyday and as long as you’re working with trainers everyday in the gym you can still look fit.
This is probably not true for every injury right now but it’s probably true for some. I ran cross country, like 5-8 miles a day usually, and I still never would’ve done a marathon. The ramp up is real
KD, Lebron, and even Steph have all talked about how different the game is played today and it’s a much quicker pace. With the reliance of the three point shot going up, they have to cover a lot more of the floor, run out for close outs, pivot more and things like that.
LeBron said it himself. And he played in both eras so I would take his word for it lol. He said they used to worry about sprain ankles and things like that bc the game used to be bullying in the paint and landing on eachother. Now it’s more soft tissue bc of the running and pivoting they have to do.
I’m sure RJ is also correct when it comes to certain players, but I don’t think the uptick in soft tissue injuries is that simple
I think RJ’s point is more around preparation not style of play. No matter the era you can’t walk into the season with limited prep and expect good things to happen. If you stay ready…..
And that commenters point is that style of play is a much bigger factor than a shortened preseason
Yeah that’s valid. I’m not sure how he would know what the players prep are these days though lol
Also which players did not play in preseason that got hurt? I didn’t really pay attention to preseason games
It’s not just about not playing, it’s all conditioning. Luka for example, according to Google (hard to find preseason stats and idc to dig that much) averaged 20 mpg in 3 pre season games. Now he’s playing 36 mpg.
I don’t expect guys to play 35 minutes in a pre season game, but that in combination with everything else is doing a lot of damage.
I do wonder if it’s worth trying a cap on minutes. Like maybe 30 mpg in October and 35 mpg in November. December onward can be uncapped. Something like that. Doesn’t need to last the whole season but just something to force teams to try and do something to see if it helps.
I also think it’s a byproduct of player safety initiatives and improved medicine/diagnostics. Players are actually speaking up and taking their health seriously now where guys back in the day were playing through all sorts of injuries and winding up washed by 30.
But that goes back to what lebron says in terms of the types of injuries. Playing through a sprained ankle and playing through a calf strain are completely different risks
If you have an Achilles rupture, calf strain, hamstring strain, etc. There is no such thing as playing through it or covering it up.
Harden played through a hamstring strain with the clippers, and hasn’t really been the same since.
Thats fair but so did rj lol
Eh, not really. 3 point volume went from 22 attempts in 2013 per game to 29 when RJ retired all the way up to 37 now. Thats a pretty dramatic increase since he’s been out of the league and to me the real reason behind all these lower body injuries.
I agree with you, but i dont think rj is the guy who that is lost on. Both things can be true
Nba players should be training for the marathon at this point instead ofnjust strength training.
Lebron didn’t play last game, so opinion rejected.
I wonder if they could do something about that. Like train.
And why are you assuming they don’t?
I’m not a ssuming anything. We all know they don’t. Except you, I guess.
I don’t know what they do. Neither do you lol
Jdub (3 games), Paolo (4 games) and Ant (5 games) played 22 MPG in the preseason. Hali (3) 18 MPG.
I feel like dwindling these injury issues down to a lack of preseason reps isn’t representative of the actual issue. Most of the guys getting hurt played respectable preseason minutes.
To be fair, Dub’s injury shouldn’t be included in this grouping
Are you serious? Bro clearly should’ve practiced landing full force from 6’+ in the air onto his externally rotated ankle. It’s his fault.
Dunn clipped him in the air and got a flagrant 1 for it. You can’t really train for malicious plays like that.
Ants as well. His knee injury has been lingering since last year and he prolonged surgery. Not a soft tissue injury.
It’s not just preseason reps, it’s about properly conditioning in the offseason
Everyone is focused on either skill work or strength, guys aren’t focusing on naturally building up their endurance
Nobody wanna run sprints in the offseason
It’s not just preseason reps
exactly….nowhere near enough preseason games to make enough of an impact (alone)
how do you know?
The clip also leaves out the point where he includes offseason. Guys sit idle for 4 months, go through training camp barely play preseason then go 100% was his point.
Not sure if it was this one but him and gill talk about how they would bike 10 miles multiple time a week and still be not in game shape when the offseason ended.
I think the games too fast, so guys are pulling, straining and tearing shit all over the place. The nature of basketball being on a hard, wooden court really does not help.
If they want to slow the game down and reduce the injuries associated with the faster pace, reintroduce hand checking.
I’m not totally convinced it isn’t the shoes. The modern game moved to lows. It can’t be a coincidence that ankle strains are on the rise.
The shoes are part of it too.
No correlation
Nah dis ain’t it fam.
Why? Any elaboration as to why that’s a totally non-workable solution from your perspective?
Slowing the game down might be the only way to actually reduce these injuries. Stat inflation would suffer (not a negative imo) but the quality of the game itself could improve.
Yes! I said this in another post earlier. The pace has to slow down.
People have brought up “the 80s was fast paced too” but that was back when the 3-pointer wasn’t a huge factor in games, illegal defense was enforced, hand-checking was allowed, along with no three-second lane violations. I’m not saying get rid of zone defense…but hand-checking will help slow the pace without going back to the late 90s and early 2000s style of play for those who don’t want it.
And get rid of the 14 second shot-clock after an offensive rebound!
This is pretty much it. Game has gotten much faster since the mid to late 2000s.. or even the 90s. Defenses have gotten more tight and have players moving around a lot more.
Pair that with 82 games only in the regular season? Nah. Easy injuries.
The NBA has not prepped for how fast the league has changed. They should reduce amount of games to compensate..
Hand checking will help too.
It’s not pace. It’s the style of play. 70s had higher pace than now.
courts be designed to be less hard on players feet
But there is handchecking, if you guys actually watch the games. Rewatch 90’s/00’s games, then watch a modern game today, the game is actually much more intense/physical today. Back then, 8 guys just stand around watching the star play hero ball. If you’re above the 3pt line, defenders sag and let you take it. Today, you regularly see players set screens at half court, because defenders are already hacking ball handlers that deep.
He means make hand checking fully legal again.
Yea…nothing JW did in the preseason was gonna prevent his foot from turning backwards.
It’s so stupid to suggest that these players playing 5-10m more in 3 preseason games would do jack shit
Preseason also used to be twice as many games. Would at least be worth mentioning when you’re talking # of preseason games played.
There are hardly any preseason games anymore. Teams used to have serious training camps and the stars would work hard before that. When the Celtics won in 2008, I remember a story about KG having Paul pull sleds in Italy, can’t find the story, but this one shows the preparation was intense.
https://www.basketballnetwork.net/latest-news/paul-pierce-on-what-set-up-2008-celtics-for-their-title-run
What else would you blame the injuries on? Did he not just say that this kind of thing did not happen at this same clip, even 15-20 years ago?
Whether RJ is spot on or not, something has tangibly changed around the league in how players are trained in childhood and as adults, because the soft-tissue injury rates have nearly doubled when you look at 2000-2015 vs. 2015-2026.
I’m gonna guess that changing the shot clock reset to 14 from 24 seconds might have contributed. I don’t like slow basketball but something has to give with going fast pace.
Agreed, I think the pace definitely plays a role. Whether it is a product of the increase in pace or something else, I think players now play off of one foot way more often than they used to.
Back in the day, they used to teach proper jumping mechanics, like jumping off of two feet and landing with two feet, but now that we are firmly in the highlight era with people jumping higher and running faster than they have before, all you see is players jumping off of one foot for dunks, block attempts, even shots now (thanks Dirk), forcing one knee/kinetic chain to stabilize and absorb the impact from the entire body.
Lack of stabilization and poor landing techniques are a recipe for disaster.
Yea I don’t really buy RJs argument, the game is too fast and explosive and the human body can’t keep up. People want solutions but there really isn’t any.
you need months of prep not a couple of preaseason games
Putting Paolo is a little bias just cause he got his ankle destroyed by dumbass Suggs
Jalen Williams’s injury was also a contact injury. It’s not like he tore something up when he was running or going up for a breakaway dunk
No one knows beyond the fact that guys are pushing their bodies harder. I’m not sure you can train your body beyond its limits. You might just end up doing more long term damage.
The reality might just be that the stress is too high so rosters need to expand and we need to switch to hockey style rotations where you’re doing line shifts more frequently to allow the same high level of exertion for shorter bursts.
It’s actually what I thought Spo was going to try to do. I thought he was going to have the team just run nonstop. Play at breakneck pace and just do hockey line changes. Run the other team off the floor or break them physically.
Has nothing to do with playing minutes in a preseason games lol. Everything to do with training as RJ says.
They need to eat their vegetables
They needs some milk.
Vegeta drinks plenty of juice.
Damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If a major star is logging in a lot of preseason minutes and gets hurt we’d call them dumb for risking it too. They’re getting hurt because the pace of play today is crazy. It’s not the marathon that’s killing them, it’s the sport being a constant sprint
I agree. The expectations also drastically changed from the time RJ was playing all season long. He’s also never been the best player on a championship team. I don’t like this dude’s takes
Damn, 5 games of fast pace killing all these players? 5 games?
It’s 5 games after not having played a full game in several months. That’ll hurt the best of athletes.
Yea, having to turn the dial to 11 after having it around 2-3 for a few months is gonna compromise a lot of muscles, tendons, and ligaments.
Nowhere near their level but trying to play a pickup without warming up is guaranteeing me atleast a cramp.
It’s accumulation, bro. Some guys here blame AAU on one hand (which happened a decade ago), and yet the moment you say “too much pace in too many games”, suddenly the recent previous seasons didn’t matter and “it’s only 5 games”. Either past mileage counts or it doesn’t.
Regimen. Not regiment.
Sir, yes sir drill sergeant!
Thank you sir may I have another!
Perk pretending to understand when Reggie talked about being in great shape was funny
The union thought doing less was better but in reality it’s worse. It happens in the NfL too. Zero contact camp leads to way worse product and way more injuries once the real games start.
I said this and got downvoted because people think that somehow the season needs to be shortened because of injuries in the first week
Maybe they meant the season should be 76 games long and start on November 2nd? If we did that we’d have none of the injuries we’ve had so far 😂
Why not both? Shorten the season AND make teams do a proper preparation before the season starts.
The back to back games doesn’t help the players. It only helps the team owners pockets.
Brother a player getting hurt 3-5 games into the season would not change if the season was 70 games instead of 82.
In a lot of cases it actually would. If you eliminated all b2bs and only played 2-3 days a week, players could recover a bit before playing the next game
Your guy Haliburton got hurt on the second night of an away B2B. With only 70 games that game either doesn’t exist or he gets an extra day of rest ahead of it. Those situations have been shown to be particularly bad for player health
It’s because we all know the NBA will never shorten the season especially after their new TV deal profits and the players themselves would never agree to it cause it means lesser pockets
Shortening the season will never be an option unfortunately
They will never shorten the season. It’s not happening. Less games = less money for players and owners. It’s a pipe dream.
What about lengthening the season? Same number of games, just over a longer period of time.
NBA is the perfect sport to shorten because the number milestones aren’t that important. It’s all about stats/game
Pretty strange how that happened: I guess because the nba raw totals are just too large?
There are a lot of people who believe obsessively that every single thing about today’s NBA must be better than the past. It stems from some truth, I think it’s fair to say these NBA teams and offenses would beat older teams, and I wouldn’t say the same for some other sports lately, like soccer and football.
But that doesn’t mean that every little thing is better now than it was, or that players haven’t accumulated some power to do what they want, and what they want isn’t necessarily optimal.
You’ll notice that a lot of the injuries are happening on back to backs, which wouldn’t exist if the season was shortened enough. Doesn’t really matter what point of the season we’re in if guys are playing 70 minutes over the course of 24 hours, it’s an outsized injury risk
Extending the length of the season (but keeping 82 games) would be more likely imo. Can have the same effect of increasing rest between games and eliminating back-to-backs without causing the league to lose out on revenue
You would need to extend it probably about a month realistically which I don’t think is palatable but yeah that would probably be better than the status quo
I really like this solution. So simple and so good that I just gotta comment.
The only real fix that teams can implement by themselves is having all their players playing less MPG and run deeper rotations in the regular season, but that’s not something either coaches or players would want to do because they prioritize their individual success over team success.
Only some teams like the Spurs have the culture to do it, they went 62-20 last season with no player playing more than 31 MPG.
Idk Cleveland tried that 1-2 years ago and it came back to bite them in the playoffs. Endurance was not there for a long time if not ever
He’s right when he says they’re not ‘preparing for the marathon’. Yes the game is more physically demanding now, but if you’re not training and playing in such a way to be able to complete the marathon, you’re doing something wrong. Everything now is very data driven, but are they measuring the right things? If not, what you choose to measure or what is easier to measure then drives the training. It’s easy to measure explosiveness, max vert, sprint speed, time to complete an agility course etc. Measuring that in the context of sustainability is very difficult. The question to ask is, what is the max agility, max vert, max repetitions, max explosiveness for each player to complete the desired number of games without injury.
KG, Gil and other retired players have been saying the same thing, its like what my track coach use to say “Yall are so full of yourselves thinking you can spend all offseason eating Wendys, playing video games and playing with your balls, then think your gonna show up to training and not get smoked or injured out the gate”
Regimen*
While people who follow the Timberwolves know Ant usually adds something to his bag in the off season, this was one where he mostly rested his knees because of the injury he sustained during the season. X-rays looked good, he trained earlier with the team on the Paris trip. Everything looked good for him up until that Toronto game - he played through it on Cleveland but the imaging said he wasn’t looking good anymore.
Game is genuinely faster and these players - especially the American ones (with AAU) have been playing waaaaaaaaaay too much basketball at a younger age (2-4 games a day and at a rate where they could have high usage). So a combination of a faster game with them entering the league with more wear and tear on their bodies is a crazy combination.
The league needs to empower defenders to be able to physically stop all this explosive twitchiness, for the sake of everyone’s health. The players will adapt and we won’t have as many speed demon twigs running the floor and tearing themselves up. Turns out being a plumber or an electrician in the offseason built up the players’ bodies for the wear and tear of the season. The league needs more Perks and less Chets.
Funny seeing the difference in reaction to this compared to when Gilbert Areanas said it when RJ literally the exact same thing lol
I mean no shit RJ haven’t u heard sport books, kalshi, and polymarket run the league now
How are those companies injuries players?
In fact, those companies would actually likely prefer players play in preseason too.
I’m saying corporations have ruined sports
They don’t wanna risk them getting hurt in practice or in a game that doesn’t get as much action. So they try and keep the players healthy by reducing their minutes and practice. This actually hurts the players because eventually they’re gonna go as hard as they can to try and win. When the players actually do go all out they hurt themselves.
Bro they’re getting hurt in October…
How are these companies getting the players hurt in fucking October?
Also the fact that the season starts earlier doesnt help with the available times to put in that rep
Regiment?
*regimen
Facts
RJ bringing out the receipts at the end. He definitely should be regarded as an authority on this subject