Shortened season responsible for injuries: David Stern says not necessarily - NBA Update
Just a week into the playoffs and players have started to fall to injuries like autumn leaves. First it was Derrick Rose and then Iman Shumpert both sidelined due to torn ACL, then Caron Butler broke his left hand and now Josh
Smith has been ruled out for at least one game due to a strained tendon in the left knee.
These the players, who have been affected in the post season, but there were some other heavy weights who didn’t manage to last the regular season. To name a few, Orlando Magic’s Dwight Howard has been ousted due to herniated disk
while Jeremy Lin, Stephen Curry, Al Horford and Andrew Bogut were all sidelined due to one reason or another.
The Rose injury late in the game-1 against the Philadelphia 76ers has especially raised the issue of the fatigue, the NBA players had to suffer due to jam packed 66 game season. David Stern, the NBA commissioner had refuted that
notion when asked about it at nearly two weeks back, pointing that the total number of injuries in the lockout shortened season were lesser than the last season and he re-iterated his stand recently. During a radio session with ESPN, Stern said.
"I don't think it's related at all. Zero,"
The NBA lockout took more than two months out of the regular NBA schedule which was supposed to start on November 1. That not only meant 2 extra games per month for the players but also gave them very little time to hold training
camps and condition their bodies for the hectic season.
This has an immediate impact at the start of the season as veteran teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics struggled to get it going. On the other hand teams like Miami Heat, Chicago
Bulls, Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder raced to impressive starts. However as the season progressed the veteran started to find their range and we now see all of these teams in the playoffs.
Philadelphia 76ers coach Doug Collins, whose team is challenging the Bulls in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, when asked about the connection between fatigue and injuries, also had a different opinion to that
of Stern;
"I don't think there's any question (the schedule has led to injuries). The wear and tear—I don't think there's any question, the fatigue. What happens during the playoffs, it gets ratcheted up even more”.
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