There is no doubt the NBA has an injury problem. The league introduced a Player Participation Policy last year to address it, but the problem only seems to be getting worse and without a clear solution in mind, it’s dark days for the NBA.
Chet Holmgren was the latest star to sustain an injury after suffering a pelvic fracture on Sunday against the Warriors.
He joins Kevin Durant, Zion Williamson, Ja Morant, Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown, Stephen Curry, Paolo Banchero, Scottie Barnes, Dejounte Murray, Paul George and Anthony Davis as players to miss time with injury this season – keep in mind we’re only three weeks into 2024-25.
Kristaps Porziņģis, Khris Middleton and Kawhi Leonard haven’t debuted for their teams this season yet.
Yahoo Sports shared some very concerning statistics around this season.
“…Star players are on pace to miss over 1,000 games this season, with games missed by star players up 24 percent in the early going compared to last season at this time. As the 2024 Emirates NBA Cup tips off Tuesday, the excitement surrounding the second annual in-season tournament is being severely undercut by the growing list of injured stars.
“…Jeff Stotts of InStreetClothes.com has been publicly tracking injuries longer than anyone in the NBA space. By his count, the numbers are swelling league-wide, not just with the household names. His database shows that games lost due to injury across the entire NBA are already up to 686 games in the first three weeks of the season, a dramatic increase from 507 last season at the same mark. That’s a 35% surge from last season and up 16% from 2023-24’s level, according to Stotts’ data provided to Yahoo Sports.”
Holmgren’s injury was one that was an outlier as it was a freak fracture, but it is the latest in a concerning early-season trend of star players missing time.
The scary part is that the league still hasn’t worked out how to keep their star players on the court.
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