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

by Norsktroll on Oct 30, 2008 2:46 AM PDT

Yeah, it's bad that Greg is injured again before his season really started. Yeah, it's bad another Blazer goes down. But let's look at some numbers in order to not panic: In the last year, the Blazers had 16 reported injuries according to Sports Illustrated incl. the ones in the off-season and Greg's current one. In about the same time frame incl. sicknesses and long-term injuries carried over other teams had the following that made a player miss at least a game:

Bobcats 22, Bucks 29, Bulls 26, Cleveland 25, Celtics 21, Clippers 25, Grizzlies 14, Hawks 18, Heat 36 (most!), Hornets 15, Jazz 20, Kings 23, Knicks 24, Lakers 14, Magic 9, Mavericks 25, Nets 19, Nuggets 24, Pacers 24, Pistons 13, Raptors 7 (fewest!), Rockets 23, Sixers 11, Sonics/Thunder 22, Spurs 12, Suns 13, Timberwolves 20, Warriors 13, Wizards 22.

League average: 19

Players that had sprained ankles include LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki, Tim Duncan, Rajon Rondo, Vince Carter, Gerald Wallace, Ben Wallace, Pau Gasol, and on and on ...

Want to see more current stuff? Besides the team-by-team SI pages you can go here, it updates daily since it's important e.g. for fantasy basketball ;-)

ESPN NBA Injury Reports (more details on current news)

Yahoo! Sports NBA Injury Reports (better overview/looks nicer)

Almost EVERY SINGLE TEAM has some sorts of injuries with varying degrees of severity ALL THE TIME. Some names out right now:

One of our favorite trade topics, Shane Battier, foot inflammation, out 4 weeks
Larry Hughes, dislocated shoulder, out 4 weeks
Brandon Haywood, wrist surgery, out indefinitely, maybe the season
Gilbert Arenas, knee, out 3 months (again! Wizard fans have a reason to panic a bit with 2/5 of their starting lineup out indefinitely)
Monta Ellis, ankle surgery after moped accident, out 3 months
Manu Ginobili, ankle surgery, out 2-3 months
Deron Williams, sprained ankle, out 2-4 weeks

Let's face it: Basketball is one of the most injury-inducing sports, since it's played at a high speed with high impact from making quick turns and twists and jumping up and down all the time. And with all the contact under the basket it's so easy to land on somebody's foot and roll an ankle no matter how well trained you are. In fact, according to data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on injuries treated in emergency rooms, it's the most dangerous sportive activity (for some reason that list omits skiing, which figures in their older studies as pretty dangerous).

Basketball: 512,213
Bicycling: 485,669
Football: 418,260
Soccer: 174,686
Baseball: 155,898
Skateboards: 112,544
Trampolines: 108,029
Softball: 106,884
Swimming/Diving: 82,354
Horseback riding: 73,576
Weightlifting: 65,716
Volleyball: 52,091
Golf: 47,360
Roller skating: 35,003
Wrestling: 33,734

Now why all the panic every time a player goes down? There are a number of psychological studies that show people perceive negative events as more impactful than positive events and that information about bad things is processed more thoroughly than information about good ones. It is also suggested that this is (or was) a healthy evolutionary mechanism to recognize potential threats more readily than potential rewards (it takes only one long winter you didn't collect enough food for or one overlooked sabertooth tiger to wipe you out of the gene pool, figuratively speaking). Moreover, negative information violates our expectations. Positive events, information, processes and interactions simply occur much more frequently than negative ones.

Basketball fans certainly share that cautious mindset especially when it comes to their team, remembering and discussing severe injuries much more profoundly than time frames when nobody is missing and everything is on the up and up.

Okay, that was my take. Now we can go on with the daily "State of the Ankle" address until Greg is back.

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Bicycling #2

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!

by BlazerFanSince1970 on Oct 30, 2008 3:04 AM PDT 0 recs

Nice

Norsktroll, I was trying too look up the relevant centers over the last twenty five years and do a comparison on there first 5 years in the league vs there entire careers and see how many of them missed significant time due to injury but the information is pretty hard to find. Any suggestions on sites that could give me career stats for players?

by Dragonage on Oct 30, 2008 5:57 AM PDT 0 recs

give me the study where ping pong is more dangerous than hunting

by Bust a Bucket on Oct 30, 2008 7:12 AM PDT 0 recs

wow I never woulda guessed that the bulls and bucks sucktitude last year could have been chalked up to injuries

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.

Afew years ago, a broadcaster once said Pryzbilla's name is "Polish for 'personal foul.'" Ouch.

by chrischa on Oct 30, 2008 8:52 AM PDT 0 recs

Really nice fanpost

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.

"Hightide was the only "Yes" vote" - parkinglotj

Joel Freeland=Stud

by hightide on Oct 30, 2008 11:15 AM PDT 0 recs

Hooray! Big picture 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 . . .

by Corvid on Oct 30, 2008 11:36 AM PDT 0 recs

Terrific, as always

I’m a fan of yours. Especially of your ability to put difficult things into perspective. Rec’d.

by ChrisB803 on Oct 30, 2008 11:54 AM PDT 0 recs

this post makes....

me feel better. rec.

The Faith don't panic, the faith freaks out burns out farms and torchs small villages in the name of The Faith.

by faith on Oct 30, 2008 12:18 PM PDT 0 recs

Really nice work

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.

by Blodgett on Oct 30, 2008 12:37 PM PDT 0 recs

Good work, but...

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.

Oden and LaMarcus and Roy, oh my!

by Quik_Baller on Oct 30, 2008 3:55 PM PDT 0 recs

Yeah, I agree the data is not great

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.

Odenied: If you're given lemmings—make lemming-ade (Bow4Meow)

by Norsktroll on Oct 30, 2008 4:08 PM PDT 0 recs

Norkstroll strikes again!

Norkstroll for MVP!

—Mortimer

by Mortimer on Oct 30, 2008 4:24 PM PDT 0 recs

Thanks, but it’s Norsk Morti, as in the language of Norway. Sigh, I’m the Joel Przybilla of Blazer’s Edge, nobody can spell my nick three times in a row without looking :)
And I only can most of the time cause I have a high school friend with the nice name Szczypka, so I’m kinda good with slightly awkward spelled names.

Odenied: If you're given lemmings—make lemming-ade (Bow4Meow)

by Norsktroll on Oct 30, 2008 5:14 PM PDT up 0 recs

Dammit to HELL

I always spell your name right. Now you’ve tried to shame me in the ultimate alpha male power move to usurp my position as most-verbose-and-annoying poster.

DAMN YOU. DAMN YOU TO HELL YOU SWEDISH DANE.

I’m a Euro mutt, but my closest relationship to Eurolandia is Sweden… my great-grammy came directly from there. That makes us almost like brothers… and maybe more? (seductive coy smile)

Mortimer

by Mortimer on Oct 30, 2008 5:57 PM PDT up 0 recs

Another thorough post by Norsk.

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).

by CaptainSexyJacob on Oct 30, 2008 10:44 PM PDT 0 recs