The NBA currently faces a grim injury epidemic … so is there an underlying cause?
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Plus the team a pundit believes could be in the best position to land Giannis Antetokounmpo if he were to request a trade.
That and more in our latest NBA Talking Points!
Mitchell sinks absurd circus shot! | 00:51
NBA’S HORROR INJURY EPIDEMIC … AND THE POTENTIAL CAUSE
It’s felt like injuries have hit the NBA harder than ever before, with the list of stars missing games enormous.
It includes Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, Paolo Banchero, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Zion Williamson, CJ McCollum, Dejounte Murray, Kristaps Porzingis, Khris Middleton, Chet Holmgren, Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Aaron Gordon and Scottie Barnes.
According to RealGM, teams are on pace to have over 1000 games missed by star players this season. And per injury tracking data from Jeff Stotts of In Street Clothes, games missed are up by 35 per cent compared to this time last season and over 16 per cent compared to the season prior.
So is there an underlying cause?
In numbers shown by HoopsHype, NBA players are covering more mileage than ever before across the marathon 82-game season as the speed of the game has increased exponentially.
Over the past 10 seasons, teams have gone from covering roughly 1,384.1 miles (2,227 kms) per 82 games to 1,493 (2,402 kms). That figure has increased yet again this season for a league average of 1,528 miles (2,459 kms).
Of course, that’s on top of the countless hours travelling on aeroplanes.
In other words, NBA players are being asked to do more than ever before despite the length of games and the season at large remaining at 82 games.
It came after the NBA changed its player participation policy ahead of last season in a bid to combat what became the two worst words for the league: load management.
Those well-intentioned rules changes meant players had to reach a 65-game requirement for post-season awards — and thus bonuses — with hopes of more availability.
But instead, stars are missing more time than ever before, with several big names absent for the beginning of the NBA’s in-season tournament.
Is it time to reduce the season length?
“It’s sad we often bring this up … it’s not sustainable what we’re seeing right now. So many of the league’s most popular stars are out,” TrueHoop’s Jarod Hector said.
“This schedule and the way it’s done, these guys aren’t terminators. They are fallible and can break an they are breaking.
“I think some coaches are starting to realise: ‘If our goal is to win, we can’t keep doing this s**’.”
Wembanyama humbles Kings on both ends | 00:50
GIANNIS TO THE NETS?
If things implode at the Milwaukee Bucks and Giannis Antetokounmpo does seek a trade, where’s his most likely landing spot?
Miami? Brooklyn? New York? Houston? Oklahoma City? Golden State?
A report earlier this month stated executives from rival NBA teams are watching Antetokounmpo’s situation closely in hopes of the MVP winner requesting a trade amid the Bucks’ sluggish 1-3 start.
It’s not like that report from CBS Sports came out of nowhere either, with rumblings in recent years around the potential for a Antetokounmpo trade for the ‘Greek Freak’ to compete for more championships.
Well, Milwaukee has won just two games since to now sit 3-8 overall and second last in the Eastern Conference.
Outside of the eventual return of Khris Middleton, it’s hard to see how the Bucks turn things around to get back into title contention, let alone playoff contention (as weak as the Eastern Conference is).
That report from CBS Sports stated an Eastern Conference executive said they’d heard Miami and Brooklyn would be Antetokounmpo’s preferred landing spots.
According to NBA analyst Bill Simmons, Brooklyn is the team best positioned to make Milwaukee a godfather offer after starting the season better than expected at 5-6 and with a huge bounty of draft picks behind it including receiving five first rounders in the Mikal Bridges trade.
“The Nets are pretty good — I think they can go all-in for Giannis,” Simmons said on his own podcast.
“They have a s***load of picks, Cam Thomas, Cam Johnson, Nic Claxton and Dennis Schroeder.
“People are going to ask who’s team that makes sense for Giannis and be like ‘what about Miami? What about (other teams)?’ I actually think it’s Brooklyn. They can just overwhelm Milwaukee with all these picks.
“They can say: ‘Hey Milwaukee, here’s Ben Simmons’ expiring contract and all these picks. Just take all of them, take as many as you want and give us Giannis’.
“I think it makes sense because I think Milwaukee needs to get out of this. To me it’s either Brooklyn or Houston, who has picks and young players.
“If I’m Giannis, would I rather go to Brooklyn or Houston? I don’t know.”
‘BEST VERSION WE’VE SEEN?’ JOKER’S HISTORICALLY GOOD STRETCH
Most thought three-time MVP Nikola Jokic couldn’t win the league’s most coveted individual award a fourth time due to voter fatigue.
But if Jokic keeps up his current pace, he’ll be impossible to ignore, putting together his, perhaps any player’s, most impressive and dominant stretch yet.
Remember when triple-doubles were rare?
Well, Jokic is a nightly triple double and then some. He’s averaging career highs across the board including 29.7 points per game (ranked fourth in the NBA), 13.7 rebounds, 11.7 assists (both first), 1.7 steals and one block on 56.3 per cent shooting from the field, 56.4 per cent from 3-point range and 84.3 per cent from the free throw line.
No other player has ever averaged 28 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists with a 65 per cent true shooting percentage over any 10-game span, per Automatic NBA, while his combined points and assists per game (60.2) are the most ever.
Let those numbers sink in for a moment …
He’s also currently tracking towards his best ever Box (Score) Plus/Minus (BPM) season at 13.91, with claim to five of the top 10 seasons in that category. The only other players in the top 10 are Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Steph Curry.
Jokic also leads the league in clutch points (33.5) and shoots 47.1 per cent in clutch situations, which ranks third. It has him on pace to shatter the record of clutch points (312), a record currently owned by LeBron James (251).
It doesn’t stop there.
The most incredible stat of all is this. Cleaning the Glass projects that the Nuggets are a 68-win team with Jokic on the floor, and just a one-win team with him off the floor.
It’s simply incredible what this man is doing, consistently finding ways to level up.
Perhaps most importantly, Jokic has powered the Nuggets to a 7-3 start including a five-game winning streak despite many believing they would take a step back this season after losing key pieces since that 2023 championship win.
“After all these MVPs he continues to evolve as a player. This guy is actually surpassing some of things he’s done in the past and I didn’t think that was possible,” NBA Analyst and former player Tim Legler said on the ALL NBA Podcast.
“And sort of carried this team from where they were, which was a lot of doubt and uncertainty. I think he put them on his back completely and now other guys are joining in the party.
“But it was him that kickstarted this and continues to do it.”
Basketball Reference is believing in what he’s doing, giving him a 91.2 per cent chance to win his fourth MVP this season based on a historical statistics indicator. The next best chance? Jason Tatum at 3.2 per cent.
We wrote in our Early NBA Overreactions that Jokic’s greatness wouldn’t be enough to save the slow-starting Nuggets, but maybe he’s just that good, along with other Denver players finding their grove.
“What’s always amazed me about Jokic is how he becomes what the team needs from him … here we are with it happening all over again,” Kevin O’Connor said on his podcast.
“The Nuggets lose key guys, they’re younger and a bit weaker on offence and here he is —a career-high 29.7 points per game. A lack of shooting on the team? A career-high 56 per cent from three.
“Jokic is posting stat lines nobody has ever done in the history of basketball. Is this the best version of Jokic we have ever seen?”
SHOULD WE BE WORRIED ABOUT THE MAVS?
From the new MVP favourite, to the pre-season favourite off to a slow start.
Luka Doncic has been below his enormous heights over the first 11 games of the campaign, which has gone hand-in-hand with Dallas’ indifferent form.
The Mavericks are 5-6, which doesn’t read too bad on the surface. But this is a team coming off an NBA Finals appearance that went 18-9 after the 2023/24 All-Star break while bolstered with several new additions including Klay Thompson.
And so Dallas was again one of the favourites in the Western Conference, yet currently finds itself outside the play-in.
Doncic ahead of Wednesday’s games was shooting a career-worst 41.2 per cent from the field including 33.3 per cent from downtown. While those numbers aren’t disastrous, consider they’re coming on 23.3 and 9.9 attempts respectively, with Dallas’ heliocentric offence largely living and dying by Doncic.
“The thing that has disappointed me most this season is I don’t feel like Luka has taken the leap you’d hope for after a heartbreaking loss in the post-season losing in the Finals to Boston,” Kevin O’Connor said on his podcast.
“He doesn’t look like he’s in amazing shape, he’s not scoring efficiently — only 33 per cent from three. Still taking a ton of tough shots. Still a lot of your turn my turn with Kyrie Irving.
“I don’t love what I’m seeing from Luka, I don’t love the supporting cast — I was sceptical about them before the season. Klay has been OK, shooting only 35 perc cent from three. 22 per cent from PJ Washington, 29 per cent from Dinwiddie, 29 per cent for Hardy, 20 per cent for Marshall, 33 per cent for Grimes.
“The team overall is 15th in 3-point attempts and 20th in 3-point percentage, I don’t believe they’ve solved the 3-point issue with Dinwiddie, Marshall, Grimes and Klay.
“That was their biggest problem and I’m not seeing the massive progress there with their off-season changes.”
The Mavs’ greatest strength last year was their offence — ranked eighth in the NBA — while their defence really picked up after adding size at the trade deadline with PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford.
However a team with Doncic and Kyrie Irving is currently outside the top 10 in offensive rating. Even if that’s only a slight drop off, it’s enough to suggest it’s not a title contender-calibre offence.
DNVR’s Adam Mares would like to see Doncic developing other parts of his game to help his teammates when his shot isn’t dropping.
“To me the question with Luka is not whether he’s great enough to dominate the style of basketball he loves — ball in his hand, pick and roll attacking. But are you developing a second punch, another thing you can do if a team overloads on that?,” Mares posed on The Kevin O’Connor Show
“Watching him early in the season, it kind of looks like they want to repeat the script, they had a bit of success.
“But they didn’t really get that close to Boston. I think that might be a tough lesson they have to learn. You have to add layers to what you are, you can’t just keep doing the same thing.”
NBA analyst and former player Tim Legler has meanwhile been disappointed by Doncic’s response to his maiden Finals defeat.
“You got to the Finals and came up short and saw what the barometer and measuring stick in this league is, which is Boston,” Legler said on the ALL NBA Podcast.
“You would like to see Luka come in and right from the beginning be in the best shape and best stamina and come out of the gates playing mid-season basketball.
“I don’t think Luka has looked great to start the year. I was wondering if they were going to take that step forward. You added Klay Thompson, the perfect fit, so the front office did their job.
“Now it’s are you ready to elevate everything about you — leadership, stamina, efficiency, everything — and be at the top of the West right out of the gate.
“It’s not going to continue, he’s going to play better and shoot better. They’re a really good team and Finals contending type team. But 10 games in it’s been a bit disappointing.”
