As the legendary actor Orson Welles once unraveled, “Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.”
The NBA and its superstars have been accorded the worst luck in the last four years, particularly referring to health. Each and every summer, we sit back reminiscing on the season that just passed. During that phase, a lot of “what ifs” rush through our head, somewhat getting us bent out of shape. As basketball devotees, we want an optimal season; players at their best, teams locked and loaded with no setbacks. It absolutely kills a playoff series when major injury complications strike a certain team.
Numerous injuries, piling up by the week, do not provide an optimal season for the players, teams, coaches, or fans.
First, understanding that there will never be a picture-perfect year where no major superstar hits the injury list is pretty clear. It’s obvious, things happen and each season — dating back to the 1970’s and 80’s — has been affected by a few crucial injuries. Championship hopes get altered, or erased completely, based on a couple teams losing their predominant scorer, vigorous rebounder, or intelligent point guard.
Still, that’s one or two teams … maximum. When I began watching basketball religiously (11 years ago), rarely could you point to six or seven teams in championship contention that were experiencing injury pitfalls. Even when they were, it didn’t seem to alter the overall team performance in a monumental way. As the years progressed toward 2015, the excuses of “they just weren’t healthy” or “IF player X wasn’t hurt, they would’ve won the title” began to appear on a yearly basis. The only time I used that phrase in the past was during the 2008 Finals, when Andrew Bynum missed the entire playoffs for the Lakers due to arthroscopic surgery on his kneecap.
Now, in the modern day based on greater innovation and improved human health, there are more injuries than ever.
Think about that for a second.
As society moves forward, medical advancements are growing by the day. Team doctors are smarter and more experienced in 2015 than they were in the 1980’s (for the most part, since exceptions always arise). Medical staffs continue to attempt the mirroring of the Phoenix Suns’ personnel, which wins about every award possible for keeping their athletes wholesome.
Yet, this continues to happen to the world’s greatest athletes. It’s almost as if the human body is playing resistant, and showing off its impedance to healthy conditions. For the strongest, quickest, and most fearless basketball players on Earth, these guys are no longer getting rewarded for going all-out, and giving their maximum effort for 82 games (not including playoffs).
Instead, the prize these lionhearted athletes get is a trip to the doctor’s office, and multiple surgeries. The NBA is becoming unfair because of these constant injuries — occurring on a weekly basis — and it’s almost turning into a ticking time-bomb. It becomes sad when media, fans, and even team personnel have to include the phrase “healthy” every single time championship hopes are discussed.
Perhaps the NBA is at fault for this prevalence of injured superstars every year. Perhaps the length and physical tax of the regular season is what shoots these players down and ruins championship dreams. It starts and ends with the 82-game regular season, which I never visualized to be the problem before this year.
I used to believe NBA connoisseurs should embrace the 82-game schedule. It provides the audience (writers or fans) a massive amount of action to watch for six and half months, before the two-month playoff system kicks in. If you’re extremely into seeing how all 30 teams operate and look before the playoffs, it gives you enough time to carefully examine the field.
However, it’s more lucid now than ever before: The season is purely too long, and the framework around NBA scheduling is flawed.
If there was a practical way for 82 games to be spread throughout the course of six months, with NO back-to-backs (or, at least very few), the league and its money-gathering superstars would be in a better place. Back-to-backs — where a team is asked to play one night, then again 24 or so hours after — play the largest role in hurting players. Forget their injury history, their play-style, or level of care they have for their bodies. The athletes aren’t stupid, and they aren’t the problem. Ridiculous scheduling procedures are.
When the league decided to give the players a seven-day break during the All-Star festivities, there was an issue. Every team was off the schedule from Friday of that week, to the following Thursday. Usually, play resumes two days after the Sunday All-Star game. The NBA’s problem with this year’s method was the fact that they didn’t extend the season by a week. If you’re going to give the players a few extra days to rest during the All-Star break, it makes logical sense to extend the season by a few more days in mid-April.
Instead, a few more games are scrunched up at the end of the year to account for the few days of rest. Yes, it creates at least one more back-to-back that shouldn’t even be in the league anyways.
An argument against removing back-to-backs that really proves to be foolish is “Americans are asked to work every single day for a living, so NBA players are no different — they should suck it up and work every day.”
Nothing grinds my gears worse than hearing that balderdash. It’s nonsense.
Athletes (in this context, NBA superstars) need to quit being placed in the same category as the average American worker. Respect is given to those who work 9-5 jobs each and every day, but asking NBA players to perform 15+ back-to-backs each season and not expecting serious injuries is ludicrous. These athletes practice almost every day, go on extended road trips with a scrunched schedule, and their line of work takes an incalculable amount of energy and attention to detail. Highlight players that are asked to go full-speed on the court for 40 minutes per night, in back-to-back games, might as well just ask for trouble.
The Bulls have 20 back-to-backs for this season, and they’ve already completed 16. In the very first week of the season, Chicago was placed with four games in six nights. In the beginning of March, they will be faced with four games in five nights, with meetings against Indiana, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, and Memphis. Yes, that’s asking for trouble.
Combining the NBA’s schedule with the fact that Tom Thibodeau isn’t willing to properly manage his stars’ minutes, you realize the stage was never set up for Rose to succeed since 2012.
Nobody is making excuses for Rose. He hasn’t done one single thing wrong since tearing his ACL in the 2012 playoffs, and nobody around him has done anything wrong.
It all circles back around to bad luck, and the NBA’s improper system that sets up even its toughest athletes to get injured.
This season, it’s been a calamity from the start.
In mid-October, Kevin Durant was diagnosed with one of the worst foot injuries you could obtain, the Jones Fracture. It kept him out 17 games, in which Oklahoma City went 5-12, and recorded an abysmal 96.2 offensive rating (second-worst in the league). They also shot a true shooting percentage of just 50.4, which was 27th overall during Durant’s absence. Russell Westbrook also missed 14 games in the first month of the season before returning, and his hand injury played into OKC’s downfall as well.
The Thunder’s two main superstars going down didn’t affect their title shot after all, since they’re now in the playoff picture of the Western Conference. However, it did make the road extremely tougher than it should’ve been, and it’s placed some heavy concern on the future of Durant.
Durant had another procedure on his surgically repaired foot this week, because one of the screws installed during the first surgery was rubbing against his bone. If the reigning MVP and deadliest scorer in the world has persisting foot problems for the rest of his career, we’ll all be devastated.
Anthony Davis has been at the center of health concerns this season, too. Davis has missed eight games thus far, primarily due to two nagging shoulder injuries; before and after the All-Star break.
In NBA history, there have only been five players to average at least 24 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 2.7 blocks per game while shooting 54.4 percent from the field. Those players were Shaquille O’Neal, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Ewing, Bob McAdoo, and David Robinson. Nobody has ever accomplished it in their third season. Davis is on pace to be the first, and yet he seems more fragile than any young player in the league. He doesn’t get rewarded for giving all his effort, he gets the bad injury luck.
Then, there’s Paul George and the Indiana Pacers. Snapping his leg in August, George immediately felt terrible that he couldn’t be there this season. He wanted to break through the tough brick walls of never being to the Finals, and getting Indiana their first NBA title. Instead, he’s been forced to sit on the bench in a suit and tie for 57 games, and is finally scheduled to return in mid-March.
Last year, the 3-man lineup of George, David West, and Roy Hibbert played 1,811 minutes together. During that time, the lineup was a +9.1 in net points per 100 possessions. “Net” in any metric refers to your team’s average minus the opponent’s average. The 3-man trio of George-West-Hibbert was also a +5.6 in net defensive rebounds, and a +3.1 in net field goals made. Both, of course, on a per 100 possessions standpoint. This season, the 3-man lineup of Solomon Hill-West-Hibbert is a whopping -10.8 in net points, and -2.4 in net field goals made. It hasn’t been the same.
Kobe Bryant also speaks volume to the injury concern around the league. Here we have a 19-year veteran that just wants to ride into retirement as a playoff contender. He claims that only a sixth championship ring will satisfy him before he hangs up the jersey, but you know deep down all he wants to do is compete. If he’s healthy and can play a full season as the scorer he wants to be, it won’t bother him.
Yet, Kobe can’t have that chance. He keeps getting bit by the injury bug. The bug’s venom is spreading throughout his body, and it’s now found his rotator cuff. While it used to be his lower body that couldn’t keep up with his determination … now it’s his upper body. It’s always something.
That doesn’t even include the likes of Carmelo Anthony (knee), Chris Bosh (lungs), Blake Griffin (staph infection), Kemba Walker (meniscus), Anderson Varejao (Achilles’ tendon), Brandon Jennings (Achilles’ tendon), Dwight Howard (knee and ankle), Julius Randle (leg), LaMarcus Aldridge (thumbs) or Jabari Parker (ACL).
Yeah, it’s becoming a hospital.
Rose’s latest meniscus tear is perhaps the most daunting of them all. It creates a nasty picture for a former MVP, one that may not even reach the Hall of Fame when his career his over.
At just 26 years old, his career and future are looking pretty similar to Brandon Roy, who elected to medically retire from basketball in his late 20’s because of degenerated knees. The Portland Trail Blazers are exactly the franchise that understands Chicago’s current pain, because they’ve fought through it for so many generations. Roy wasn’t the first, but he had unreal potential.
Rose’s potential was on full display in 2010-11, as he stopped LeBron James from claiming a third-straight MVP award.
This season, he showed flashes of brilliance here and there. Having seven games of scoring 25+ points, Rose was hit or miss for Chicago. But, the team didn’t rely on him nearly as much as they did in his MVP days.
When Rose was on the court this season, the Bulls racked up an offensive rating of 108 points per 100 possessions. When Rose is off the court, the Bulls’ offensive rating is 108.2. Not an improvement, and not really a setback. No change. However, it was absurd in 2010-11. During that season, Chicago’s offensive rating with Rose on the court was 111.0. With Rose sitting in 2010-11, their offensive rating was a putrid 100.9.
The difference: This current Chicago unit has a reformed Jimmy Butler, a destructive Pau Gasol on offense, and a feared defender in Joakim Noah that is five times better today than he was in 2011. They seem fit to handle these unfortunate events.
To top it all off, Chicago is stuck in one of the worst situations possible. They have no amnesty clause available to use on Rose, because Gar Forman decided to amnesty Carlos Boozer last summer. Amnestying Rose would’ve given the Bulls the ability to waive him and get out of the ridiculous money bind they’re in. Rose is owed $20,093,064 in 2015-16, and then $21,323,252 in 2016-17. Paying those amounts for a player that constantly has terrible knee luck isn’t ideal.
Rose’s best option, at this stage of his career, might be to remove the meniscus in his right knee. It does serve as a long-term problem in the future, but there’s something to remember. This is the most talented roster Chicago has put together since Michael Jordan‘s title-winning Bulls in 1998. Not capitalizing on this opportunity to get the city their first NBA Finals in 17 years would be a disaster.
Rose may need to realize that his future doesn’t include basketball once he’s in his mid-30’s. So, why not cash in on the chance he currently has? Why not go all-in for one major title run when Pau Gasol is still productive, and when Jimmy Butler is feeling the most confident in his young career?
Removing the meniscus, returning by mid-April, and putting the pedal to the metal through the East playoffs is the path many would elect to take here. Rose just has to make that decision for himself, and do what’s best for his mindset.
Regardless, this could turn out extremely ugly for Chicago if Rose isn’t able to ever be the same again. It looks like the window is closing, faster than any of us want it to.