Perspective: Data suggests the Blazers aren't unusually injury prone (yet basketball is dangerous)

And we let Oden ride a bike while rehabbing?

Seriously, excellent information. Put’s things in perspective.

Plus misery likes company. I feel better already!

still, that list of teams and players doesn’t mean fans shouldn’t be concerned or “panic” when injuries begin to pile up or when a star player goes down for an extended period of time. I know things are looking pretty dreary in DC right now because of Gil’s knee and its not like those fans are looking around and saying, well, basketball is a dangerous sport. Those guys are probably worse than us and the same could probably be said about a lot of teams/fans. and I don’t think blazer fans are panicking over the Raefist’s shoulder, Channing’s ankles or Martell’s foot. People are freaking out because Greg Oden has missed a ton of basketball relative to the length of his career. Well, technically he doesn’t have a professional career yet but I like to count a few summer league and preseason games as something. And lets face it, this is a unique situation. I’m not ever gonna compare GO to Sam Bowie but even Sam didn’t miss this much time this early in his career. I think its perfectly normal for fans to react to something like this, I mean, its not like people are trying to sell off their tickets, it shows how much people care about this team.

I rec’d it this morning just based on the title and when I could get around to reading the whole thing it was well worth the rec. Nice way to put the last couple months of injuries in perspective.

Thanks for doing the research and providing the links. I especially appreciated your comments about the psychology of panic.

I also like the CBS Sports injuries page. Nice easy-to-read format and fairly complete, even if it’s vague on the injury details/rehab progress (it could use a comments column). But then, ESPN doesn’t mention Manu or Martell . . .

me feel better. rec.

I had never thought of comparing injuries on other teams. It looks as though we are middle of the road, although I wonder how serious some of the injuries are on other teams. SI doesn’t always give an estimate of how long the player will be out, so we don’t know if these are just ticky-tacky injuries or multiple game injuries.

what we also need is how many games were missed by those injuries.

For example, Roy and Frye just had surgery, but didn’t miss a game. Oden’s knee made him miss 82 games.

Sometimes a superstar will tweak an ankle, is still be able to play, but claim an injury such that they can take a break for a few games. If I was Doc Rivers, I would absolutely do that for one of the “big three” to ensure they are 100% healthy for the “marathon season” and playoffs.

Each data point is just “there was some injury that made a player miss a game”, not how severe/long the problem was. Blodgett covered that well in his post on the injury history of Oden and other centers. I don’t know where aggregated data on these problems might exist (e.g. which players missed the most games due to injuries) and didn’t put more than an hour into research. The point was to show that in general all teams suffer from injuries quite regularly, and even players not considered injury prone get hurt from time to time in this sport. So like the players themselves the fans have to deal with these negative events and kind of expect something bad to happen every once in a while. That a #1 draft pick can’t play a whole season is of course rare, probably David Robinson is one of the few due to his military service.

Norkstroll for MVP!

—Mortimer

For some reason, I too read your name as Norks more often than Norsk! Eerie.

But anyway, things could be MUCH worse… the Wizards have endured a painful time with their Big Three. And how about Monta after the contract extension and shipping of Baron Davis? We still have Roy and Aldridge (knock, knock, knock).