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Not to tempt fate *knocks on wood* but as a follow up to the summer's article and discussion about Gary Vitti implementing new features to the Lakers injury prevention research, as of today Lakers are the healthiest team in the league in terms of games missed by players due to injuries.

Through the first 20 games of the season the league total for games missed to injury sits at 950, 138 games less than last year's total. Familiar faces have kept their teams healthy as the medical staffs for the San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns again find themselves in the top five for fewest games missed. However a surprise team ranks number one as the Lakers have lost the fewest number of games to injury after 20 games. The team led by the soon-to-retire Gary Vitti have lost just five games due to injury, a stark contrast from last year when the lost 72 games at the same mark.

Zach Harper | CBS Sports

Getting rid of the cursed Nash helped.

Slava, this is a major surprise and a great one to hear indeed. i remember you stating lots last season about us spending more money & time on injury prevention. this should indeed help along with the new facility in making sure this franchise has all the tool's available for a player to reach their respective potential

well yeah if most of the players (sans maybe Kobe and the youth, plus maybe nick young) aren't really trying that much its natural that with the lack of strain, that their would be less injuries

also hopefully our health and injury management has come into the 21st century

Sofa King wrote:Getting rid of the cursed Nash helped.

That's true Nash alone would have us in 12th place on this list


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Spens1 wrote:
also hopefully our health and injury management has come into the 21st century

Lakers/Vitti have always been one of the teams on the leading edge of player healthcare


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gts1 wrote:

Spens1 wrote:
also hopefully our health and injury management has come into the 21st century

Lakers/Vitti have always been one of the teams on the leading edge of player healthcare


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Vitti is cutting edge, but it seems he hasn't been given free reign or the facilities he maybe should have until now

Makes this team being worse than ever all that more remarkable.

crazyeights wrote:Makes this team being worse than ever all that more remarkable.

Yup, at least the last couple years we had somewhat of an excuse.

I think it's too early for this to mean anything.

The Prodigy wrote:I think it's too early for this to mean anything.

It doesn't mean anything anyway... It would only mean something if we were in the championship hunt and didn't have a team full of kids.

Kilroy wrote:

The Prodigy wrote:I think it's too early for this to mean anything.

It doesn't mean anything anyway... It would only mean something if we were in the championship hunt and didn't have a team full of kids.

I meant the sample size is too small to be able to determine whether the injury prevention methods the Lakers started employing are truly keeping our players healthier.

I disagree that player health is not important in a non-contending season. If the Lakers have truly found an effective injury prevention system it will have very positive ramifications for the franchise going forward,

I'm obviously not saying player health isn't important. I'm saying that the extrapolations the article makes based on our perceived health are a little silly...
Yes, the sample size is ridiculously small.

Kilroy wrote:I'm obviously not saying player health isn't important. I'm saying that the extrapolations the article makes based on our perceived health are a little silly...
Yes, the sample size is ridiculously small.

And the sampling from last season for comparisons is distorted.

Lakers had two big injuries in Nash and Randle to start the season, then Kobe later on.. so right there at this time of the season you have at minimum 40 games missed already by just two guys, that would put the Lakers 6th on this list...

That doesn't make the training staff bad or ownership lax in how they handle injuries or the facilities they provide sub par... just unfortunate

All in all, my takeaway from all this is that we've modernized that department a bit and there appears to be a resultant dip in injuries... That seems debatable on the surface but I think it's safe to say all that is positive...
So, good job Lakers.
The rest may be window dressing but it's still fundamentally a good thing.

This is excellent news for our future going forward. Health is the #1 factor in how good your team is, more so than talent.