Jordan’s teams were shockingly healthy

[CobraCommander]

Games back then were much slower, guys didn't get injured as often. It was an old mans league back then.

How old are you?

[gipper08]

Ceballos being injured was a big hit to Phoenix. Given how absurdly close that series was it was a big deal.

Absolutely NOT. Against the Bulls the Suns were light years better with Dumas vs Ceballos. Ceballos cannot play any Defense particularly in 92 and particularly against the Bulls.

His 12 ppg does not make up for the clown show that was his defense.

[gipper08]

The nba is just more physically taxing on the body than it used to be. But yes, the bulls had good luck with health, but as other have pointed out many of the bulls players were playing through injuries. But again, it was easier to do that back then. 98 Pippen couldn't have stayed on the floor in today's game, but back then with the slow pace, smaller defensive roles, effectively a small half court, etc etc it was just easier.

Uh, they 90s was considerably MORE physically taxing and the early 90s were played at a high pace.

[khufure]

don't worry, Chicago has made up for the good run of health since. oOF

[dhsilv2]

The nba is just more physically taxing on the body than it used to be. But yes, the bulls had good luck with health, but as other have pointed out many of the bulls players were playing through injuries. But again, it was easier to do that back then. 98 Pippen couldn't have stayed on the floor in today's game, but back then with the slow pace, smaller defensive roles, effectively a small half court, etc etc it was just easier.

Uh, they 90s was considerably MORE physically taxing and the early 90s were played at a high pace.

No they weren't. Things like hand checking, posting up, etc reduce the damage to your body. They slow the game. The lack of 3 point shooting made the half courts nearly half the size. The strict man defense rules allowed 4 of the guys on the court often to just rest up on defense. It was staggeringly less taxing and demanding physically on the body.

[gipper08]

No they weren't. Things like hand checking, posting up, etc reduce the damage to your body. They slow the game. The lack of 3 point shooting made the half courts nearly half the size. The strict man defense rules allowed 4 of the guys on the court often to just rest up on defense. It was staggeringly less taxing and demanding physically on the body.

You just repeated the save trash. Yes, it was staggeringly easier to play against the Pistons than say todays warriors.

Rebounding, for example was so much easier back then. Getting boards now is staggeringly hard compared to the 90s.

[Tottery]

Jordan was notorious for playing through injury and illness. The rest, not so much.

[Crunch 99]

Jordan played through a lot of injuries. He was pretty known for not advertising his injuries, because he didn’t want guys to try and take advantage of that or purposely go out of their way to hit a sore knee or whatever. Pretty amazing that he was able to play 82 games his final season with the Wizards too.

Jordan also took some seasons off to play the comparatively soft sport of baseball. Karl Malone is a better example of ironman longevity and playing through injuries. Malone played nearly every game for 18 seasons straight, only missing a total of 14 games in his first 18 seasons. It wasn't until his 19th season, playing with the Lakers, that he began to give up his ironman status, missing nearly half the games that final season. Malone played 62,579 NBA minutes to Jordan's 48,485 minutes. Of course I am sure Malone would rather have Jordan's titles than recognition for minutes. Lol.

I don't know whether actual data supports this conclusion, but anecdotally observing, it seems like the percentage of games missed by the top paid players is steadily increasing over time, though covid protocols makes the recent data look worse. Undoubtedly agents are pushing players to be more and more cautious given the ever increasing, massive potential contracts on the line.

[dhsilv2]

No they weren't. Things like hand checking, posting up, etc reduce the damage to your body. They slow the game. The lack of 3 point shooting made the half courts nearly half the size. The strict man defense rules allowed 4 of the guys on the court often to just rest up on defense. It was staggeringly less taxing and demanding physically on the body.

You just repeated the save trash. Yes, it was staggeringly easier to play against the Pistons than say todays warriors.

Rebounding, for example was so much easier back then. Getting boards now is staggeringly hard compared to the 90s.

Why is rebounding harder? They're more distributed due to long bounces so more guards get in on the action. They are also generally less contested due to teams focusing on getting back on defense.

But you're not tearing a joint doing a europe step in 1990 or being asked to cover the 3 point line and the rim. You might take a cheap shot....but those didn't happen often and injuries from them were even less common.

[og15]

The nba is just more physically taxing on the body than it used to be. But yes, the bulls had good luck with health, but as other have pointed out many of the bulls players were playing through injuries. But again, it was easier to do that back then. 98 Pippen couldn't have stayed on the floor in today's game, but back then with the slow pace, smaller defensive roles, effectively a small half court, etc etc it was just easier.

Uh, they 90s was considerably MORE physically taxing and the early 90s were played at a high pace.

Humans didn't change from the 90's to now or from any time since basketball has been played until now, and there's no magical tougheness that is going to prevent injuries either. There also no toughness that will allow players to play effectively through certain injuries (eg, torn ligaments in the lower body). Therefore, if there is actually a higher rate of injuries (I don't know, guessing is not the same as data), it will be related to something in player load, game play, increased injury diagnosis, etc.

So that will have us asking questions like what types of injuries cause players to miss the most games? Usually we're looking at ligament and tendon injuries for missing a lot of games since players generally can't play through that. So are we having more of those injuries?

Then we have to ask questions like whether more physicality as being described would lead to more injuries or if covering more of the court defensively which is just a reality of the high use of the 3, and increased hard cutting and planting and sudden change of direction as players have taken moves from their predecessors integrated them and expanded on them; if that is more likely to increase the kinds of injuries that takes players out longer. The physicality wasn't free reign to take players out in the air or things like that, but certainly you could get away with bruising guys more, though those aren't going to be games missed injuries. Players can still unintentionally (or intentionally) stumble upon injuring others from contact at a similar rate without being as physical.

Then we might also look at players wear and tear before they enter the league, which many seem to conclude that most young players are overplayed prior to the NBA with tournaments, camps, training, etc, and then we can look at average wear and tear in the summer. I remember how it was a common occurrence that for many players, training camp was the time to really get in shape, while now the average expectation is more to be in shape for training camp, of course with exceptions both ways, but that's why I said "average".

There are multiple confounding factors that it is probably hard to pin down just one thing. That said, without a comprehensive list of injuries, at least the publicly reported ones that we know of, and a comparison showing the rate, there's some guessing going on. For recent seasons we would also have to subtract COVID protocol missed games.

[dhsilv2]

The nba is just more physically taxing on the body than it used to be. But yes, the bulls had good luck with health, but as other have pointed out many of the bulls players were playing through injuries. But again, it was easier to do that back then. 98 Pippen couldn't have stayed on the floor in today's game, but back then with the slow pace, smaller defensive roles, effectively a small half court, etc etc it was just easier.

Uh, they 90s was considerably MORE physically taxing and the early 90s were played at a high pace.

Humans didn't change from the 90's to now or from any time since basketball has been played until now, and there's no magical tougheness that is going to prevent injuries either. There also no toughness that will allow players to play effectively through certain injuries (eg, torn ligaments in the lower body). Therefore, if there is actually a higher rate of injuries (I don't know, guessing is not the same as data), it will be related to something in player load, game play, increased injury diagnosis, etc.

So that will have us asking questions like what types of injuries cause players to miss the most games? Usually we're looking at ligament and tendon injuries for missing a lot of games since players generally can't play through that. So are we having more of those injuries?

Then we have to ask questions like whether more physicality as being described would lead to more injuries or if covering more of the court defensively which is just a reality of the high use of the 3, and increased hard cutting and planting and sudden change of direction as players have taken moves from their predecessors integrated them and expanded on them; if that is more likely to increase the kinds of injuries that takes players out longer. The physicality wasn't free reign to take players out in the air or things like that, but certainly you could get away with bruising guys more, though those aren't going to be games missed injuries. Players can still unintentionally (or intentionally) stumble upon injuring others from contact at a similar rate without being as physical.

Then we might also look at players wear and tear before they enter the league, which many seem to conclude that most young players are overplayed prior to the NBA with tournaments, camps, training, etc, and then we can look at average wear and tear in the summer. I remember how it was a common occurrence that for many players, training camp was the time to really get in shape, while now the average expectation is more to be in shape for training camp, of course with exceptions both ways, but that's why I said "average".

There are multiple confounding factors that it is probably hard to pin down just one thing. That said, without a comprehensive list of injuries, at least the publicly reported ones that we know of, and a comparison showing the rate, there's some guessing going on. For recent seasons we would also have to subtract COVID protocol missed games.

Not historically but this shows an issue even recently.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263354

edit
This supports the types of injuries (2010 work) but the types aren't changing.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445097/

[og15]

Uh, they 90s was considerably MORE physically taxing and the early 90s were played at a high pace.

Humans didn't change from the 90's to now or from any time since basketball has been played until now, and there's no magical tougheness that is going to prevent injuries either. There also no toughness that will allow players to play effectively through certain injuries (eg, torn ligaments in the lower body). Therefore, if there is actually a higher rate of injuries (I don't know, guessing is not the same as data), it will be related to something in player load, game play, increased injury diagnosis, etc.

So that will have us asking questions like what types of injuries cause players to miss the most games? Usually we're looking at ligament and tendon injuries for missing a lot of games since players generally can't play through that. So are we having more of those injuries?

Then we have to ask questions like whether more physicality as being described would lead to more injuries or if covering more of the court defensively which is just a reality of the high use of the 3, and increased hard cutting and planting and sudden change of direction as players have taken moves from their predecessors integrated them and expanded on them; if that is more likely to increase the kinds of injuries that takes players out longer. The physicality wasn't free reign to take players out in the air or things like that, but certainly you could get away with bruising guys more, though those aren't going to be games missed injuries. Players can still unintentionally (or intentionally) stumble upon injuring others from contact at a similar rate without being as physical.

Then we might also look at players wear and tear before they enter the league, which many seem to conclude that most young players are overplayed prior to the NBA with tournaments, camps, training, etc, and then we can look at average wear and tear in the summer. I remember how it was a common occurrence that for many players, training camp was the time to really get in shape, while now the average expectation is more to be in shape for training camp, of course with exceptions both ways, but that's why I said "average".

There are multiple confounding factors that it is probably hard to pin down just one thing. That said, without a comprehensive list of injuries, at least the publicly reported ones that we know of, and a comparison showing the rate, there's some guessing going on. For recent seasons we would also have to subtract COVID protocol missed games.

Not historically but this shows an issue even recently.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263354

edit
This supports the types of injuries (2010 work) but the types aren't changing.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445097/

The 2010 one I had looked at in the past, but not the more recent one. I did know that guards were more injury prone, which obviously makes sense as guards are generally moving the fastest on the court, jumping more and higher than may at other positions and making the most change of direction moves in comparison. A big for example can get away with barely jumping, because, well, big.

Interesting though, certainly suggests there could be a wear and tear and playstyle element to it.

[dhsilv2]

Humans didn't change from the 90's to now or from any time since basketball has been played until now, and there's no magical tougheness that is going to prevent injuries either. There also no toughness that will allow players to play effectively through certain injuries (eg, torn ligaments in the lower body). Therefore, if there is actually a higher rate of injuries (I don't know, guessing is not the same as data), it will be related to something in player load, game play, increased injury diagnosis, etc.

So that will have us asking questions like what types of injuries cause players to miss the most games? Usually we're looking at ligament and tendon injuries for missing a lot of games since players generally can't play through that. So are we having more of those injuries?

Then we have to ask questions like whether more physicality as being described would lead to more injuries or if covering more of the court defensively which is just a reality of the high use of the 3, and increased hard cutting and planting and sudden change of direction as players have taken moves from their predecessors integrated them and expanded on them; if that is more likely to increase the kinds of injuries that takes players out longer. The physicality wasn't free reign to take players out in the air or things like that, but certainly you could get away with bruising guys more, though those aren't going to be games missed injuries. Players can still unintentionally (or intentionally) stumble upon injuring others from contact at a similar rate without being as physical.

Then we might also look at players wear and tear before they enter the league, which many seem to conclude that most young players are overplayed prior to the NBA with tournaments, camps, training, etc, and then we can look at average wear and tear in the summer. I remember how it was a common occurrence that for many players, training camp was the time to really get in shape, while now the average expectation is more to be in shape for training camp, of course with exceptions both ways, but that's why I said "average".

There are multiple confounding factors that it is probably hard to pin down just one thing. That said, without a comprehensive list of injuries, at least the publicly reported ones that we know of, and a comparison showing the rate, there's some guessing going on. For recent seasons we would also have to subtract COVID protocol missed games.

Not historically but this shows an issue even recently.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263354

edit
This supports the types of injuries (2010 work) but the types aren't changing.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445097/

The 2010 one I had looked at in the past, but not the more recent one. I did know that guards were more injury prone, which obviously makes sense as guards are generally moving the fastest on the court, jumping more and higher than may at other positions and making the most change of direction moves in comparison. A big for example can get away with barely jumping, because, well, big.

Interesting though, certainly suggests there could be a wear and tear and playstyle element to it.

https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2018/04/the-impact-of-a-torn-acl-on-an-nba-player.html

This overs ACL injuries through I guess April 2018.

70-79 2
80-89 14
90-99 21
00-09 34
10-18 (incomplete) 34

So the increase in ACL tears is absolutely measurable.

Some of these ideas that guys are getting hurt more because they're just soft and how guys couldn't handle the past is just comical.

[meekrab]

Rodman played 64 and 55 games his first two seasons there.

As I recall, this wasn't due to injury but partying.

[og15]

Not historically but this shows an issue even recently.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263354

edit
This supports the types of injuries (2010 work) but the types aren't changing.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445097/

The 2010 one I had looked at in the past, but not the more recent one. I did know that guards were more injury prone, which obviously makes sense as guards are generally moving the fastest on the court, jumping more and higher than may at other positions and making the most change of direction moves in comparison. A big for example can get away with barely jumping, because, well, big.

Interesting though, certainly suggests there could be a wear and tear and playstyle element to it.

https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2018/04/the-impact-of-a-torn-acl-on-an-nba-player.html

This overs ACL injuries through I guess April 2018.

70-79 2
80-89 14
90-99 21
00-09 34
10-18 (incomplete) 34

So the increase in ACL tears is absolutely measurable.

Some of these ideas that guys are getting hurt more because they're just soft and how guys couldn't handle the past is just comical.

What's the percentage of those, because we do have an increase in teams and roster sizes, the increase will still be there, but might not be as drastic. But yea, being soft doesn't really have any significant factor in this situation.

[dhsilv2]

The 2010 one I had looked at in the past, but not the more recent one. I did know that guards were more injury prone, which obviously makes sense as guards are generally moving the fastest on the court, jumping more and higher than may at other positions and making the most change of direction moves in comparison. A big for example can get away with barely jumping, because, well, big.

Interesting though, certainly suggests there could be a wear and tear and playstyle element to it.

https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2018/04/the-impact-of-a-torn-acl-on-an-nba-player.html

This overs ACL injuries through I guess April 2018.

70-79 2
80-89 14
90-99 21
00-09 34
10-18 (incomplete) 34

So the increase in ACL tears is absolutely measurable.

Some of these ideas that guys are getting hurt more because they're just soft and how guys couldn't handle the past is just comical.

What's the percentage of those, because we do have an increase in teams and roster sizes, the increase will still be there, but might not be as drastic. But yea, being soft doesn't really have any significant factor in this situation.

There were 27 teams in 1990. And 30 today. So an 11% increase if we were to just go with that. That's 62% increase from the 90's to the 00's. its more complex if we go through the eras with huge expansion.

I don't see any reason to look at roster size as it was still 82 games and 48 minute games. The minutes of players on the floor is the same once we adjust for teams.

[og15]

https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2018/04/the-impact-of-a-torn-acl-on-an-nba-player.html

This overs ACL injuries through I guess April 2018.

70-79 2
80-89 14
90-99 21
00-09 34
10-18 (incomplete) 34

So the increase in ACL tears is absolutely measurable.

Some of these ideas that guys are getting hurt more because they're just soft and how guys couldn't handle the past is just comical.

What's the percentage of those, because we do have an increase in teams and roster sizes, the increase will still be there, but might not be as drastic. But yea, being soft doesn't really have any significant factor in this situation.

There were 27 teams in 1990. And 30 today. So an 11% increase if we were to just go with that. That's 62% increase from the 90's to the 00's. its more complex if we go through the eras with huge expansion.

I don't see any reason to look at roster size as it was still 82 games and 48 minute games. The minutes of players on the floor is the same once we adjust for teams.

Roster size I was just thinking it means a larger amount of players who can get injured. So if you have 360 players vs 450 players, there are 90 more bodies running around that could get injured. Whether it makes a difference in the data or not I don't know, I just like to have all the details, it's my epidemiology interest surfacing.

[dhsilv2]

What's the percentage of those, because we do have an increase in teams and roster sizes, the increase will still be there, but might not be as drastic. But yea, being soft doesn't really have any significant factor in this situation.

There were 27 teams in 1990. And 30 today. So an 11% increase if we were to just go with that. That's 62% increase from the 90's to the 00's. its more complex if we go through the eras with huge expansion.

I don't see any reason to look at roster size as it was still 82 games and 48 minute games. The minutes of players on the floor is the same once we adjust for teams.

Roster size I was just thinking it means a larger amount of players who can get injured. So if you have 360 players vs 450 players, there are 90 more bodies running around that could get injured. Whether it makes a difference in the data or not I don't know, I just like to have all the details, it's my epidemiology interest surfacing.

I don't feel like ACL injuries happen in practice otherwise. But fair enough, it's not a useless data point, but I don't think it's a meaningful one.

[moderndarwin]

Anyone can easily see we have “better” athletes today that are pushing their bodies to the absolute limit. Steph Curry for example is maxing out the absolute max of what his body is capable of. It’s easier to get injured like this rhan if you’re just a skinny guy like Reggie Miller running around and never adding bulk. There is more wear and tear on the joints etc.