The NBA’s competition committee, convening this week in Las Vegas, is expected to address the high-profile trend of Achilles tendon injuries, which during the playoffs ended the seasons of stars Jayson Tatum, Tyrese Haliburton and Damian Lillard.
In all, seven NBA players went down with a ruptured Achilles this past year, the others being James Wiseman, Isaiah Jackson, Dejounte Murray and Dru Smith during the regular season. At this week’s summer league, a plethora of orthopedic companies have arrived to weigh in with opinions and training proposals designed to explain or prevent the injuries.
“Feels like there must be a thousand of performance people here, I guess selling their wares,” said one NBA team executive. “But [the Achilles epidemic] is something. There’s no way it’s not something. We’re looking at how people are playing, what the jump-back moves mean, how fast the game is.
“Everything [injury-wise] in basketball is below the waist, and when someone gets a sore calf, I think the number one thing you’ll see is people will not ... play. It doesn’t matter if they get cleared medically. They will say, ‘I’m not 100% so there’s no way I’m doing it.’ It was starting to happen over the last year, but I think with what’s gone on is that any player who doesn’t feel 100% in the calves, or in their calf, is not going to play. That would be my bet.”
Commissioner Adam Silver has repeatedly expressed his concern and has reportedly assembled a panel of experts to identify the reasons for the trend, which could range from the length of season to playing year-round to high-intensity training regimens.
