The NBA has encountered a concerning spike in Achilles injuries this season, recording seven known cases, a significant increase compared to previous years. Whether it’s great quarterbacks going out or other notable stars, injuries have weighed heavily on this regular season. This list includes Pacers big James Wiseman and Isaiah Jackson, New Orleans swingman Dejounte Murray, and Miami ball handler Dru Smith. In retrospect, the playoffs were marked by high-profile injuries, as Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Milwaukee’s Damian Lillard both dealt with Achilles issues.
The NBA Finals was already bordering on their own critical situation when Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton ruptured his Achilles. This was the injury that took place in dramatic Game 7 vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder. Haliburton’s injury in the first quarter of that game prompted him to go under the knife just a day later. His injury brought an urgency to Achilles issues around the league.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver recently declared that the league has intervened to stop the tide on increasing injury rates. Even before Haliburton’s injury, they had called in an independent panel of experts to examine these incidents. One key part of the NBA’s proactive approach was working with artificial intelligence to sift through complex patterns and data to connect Achilles injuries.
“We had already convened a panel of experts before Tyrese’s most recent Achilles rupture,” – Adam Silver
This season, the trend in injuries has been shocking. Last year, during equivalent circumstances, we didn’t have a single reported Achilles injury. Prior to this season, there have only been four Achilles injuries ever recorded in a season. It is unusual that circumstances are so dramatically focused on just this year’s spike in injuries.
Silver reiterated the need to take a deeper look at historical injury data. He noted that most Achilles injuries have occurred pre All-Star break. Based on this observation, he proposes that some underlying factors may be causing this year’s strange trend.
“When we look back at the last 10 years, the majority of the Achilles injuries have happened before the All-Star break,” – Adam Silver
The Senator from Louisiana was bullish on AI keeping future injuries from occurring. The league plans to leverage technology to analyze video footage of players’ performances in an effort to identify previously unnoticed patterns that could lead to Achilles injuries.
“I’m hopeful that by looking at more data, by looking at patterns, this is one area where AI — people are talking about how that’s going to transform so many areas — the ability with AI to ingest all video of every game a player’s played in to see if you can detect some pattern that we didn’t realize that leads to an Achilles injury,” – Adam Silver
Leave a Reply