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NBA Injuries: 20 Stars Who Deserve A Career Do-Over

By Gerald Bourguet

AUBURN HILLS, UNITED STATES: Detroit Pistons player Grant Hill (L) drives around Indiana Pacers player Chris Mullin during the first half of their game 07 February at the Palace of Auburn Hills. The Pistons beat the Pacers 107-98. AFP PHOTO/JEFF KOWALSKY (Photo credit should read JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty Images)
AUBURN HILLS, UNITED STATES: Detroit Pistons player Grant Hill (L) drives around Indiana Pacers player Chris Mullin during the first half of their game 07 February at the Palace of Auburn Hills. The Pistons beat the Pacers 107-98. AFP PHOTO/JEFF KOWALSKY (Photo credit should read JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty Images) /
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When it comes to career-altering injuries and tragedies, here are the top 20 NBA stars we wish could get a do-over to reach their full potential.

NBA Injuries
AUBURN HILLS, UNITED STATES: Detroit Pistons player Grant Hill (L) drives around Indiana Pacers player Chris Mullin during the first half of their game 07 February at the Palace of Auburn Hills. The Pistons beat the Pacers 107-98. AFP PHOTO/JEFF KOWALSKY (Photo credit should read JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty Images) /

In a sport featuring mammoth human beings running up and down a hardwood floor at blinding speeds for 48 minutes in an 82-game season, no one should be surprised that injuries are a recurring presence in NBA basketball. They swing title aspirations, spark debate and provide a source of frustrating hypotheticals for long-suffering fan bases on a yearly basis.

But in the worst case scenario, injuries can derail the career of an NBA star — no matter what age, no matter how talented, no matter how promising they might be — at a moment’s notice.

Throughout the course of NBA history, we’ve seen a plethora of injuries strike superstars, role players and benchwarmers alike. Those injuries have ranged from arms to legs to head to chest to pretty much every other body part imaginable, and they’ve ranged from day-to-day maladies to season-ending tragedies.

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For some players, it’s a matter of luck. For others, it’s a matter of having the misfortunate of being injury-prone. But in any case, every basketball fan has their one or favorite “What if?” players that might have reached spectacular heights in the annals of NBA history if not for career-disrupting injuries.

In an attempt to remember the fallen and those who never reached their full potential because of a health-related tragedy, it’s time to look back on 20 great players in NBA history that we would love to give a career do-over.

As we count down from 20 to No. 1 on the list, we’ll be factoring in the severity of the injury/career-derailing incident, the frequency of those injuries, the magnitude of what might have been otherwise, and the gap between that player’s potential and what they were able to accomplish before tragedy intervened (the larger the gap, the more favor they’ll receive in our rankings).

Let’s get started.

Honorable Mentions: Andrew Toney, Brad Daugherty, Micheal Ray Richardson, Gus Johnson, Tim Hardaway, Danny Manning, Arvydas Sabonis, John Lucas, Alonzo Mourning, Larry Johnson, Dajuan Wagner and (maybe in a year or two) Anthony Davis

Next: No. 20