A number of important players have caught the injury bug early this season, inadvertently putting their teams in a place to fail if they can’t find a replacement or get production out of their rotation.
While some organisations can fight through the injuries, bringing in role players and pine-riders to fill the void, others are likely to get early draft picks in 2015.
The Minnesota Timberwolves are missing Nikola Pekovic, Ricky Rubio and Kevin Martin, three key pieces to their team. When you combine that with Kevin Love leaving for Cleveland and the lack of firepower on their roster, it’s no surprise they’re 5-25 and at the bottom of the Western Conference.
The Cleveland Cavaliers did not play Kevin Love, LeBron James or Shawn Marion against Milwaukee on Wednesday. Combined with Anderson Varejao out for the season, this likely caused them to lose 96-80 to the Bucks (or it was the ever-growing tension between David Blatt and his team – take your pick).
The Charlotte Hornets are back into freefall mode, currently missing Al Jefferson and Lance Stephenson while sitting at 10-23. The Denver Nuggets have attempted to hold their own with JaVale McGee and Randy Foye out, but have only managed to put together a 13-19 record so far.
Some teams have actually succeeded despite injuries to big name players. The Golden State Warriors are 25-5 and atop of the Western Conference, despite Andrew Bogut out indefinitely with a knee injury. How long they will remain number one without Bogut’s defensive capabilities remains to be seen.
The Los Angeles Lakers actually appeared to be playing better when Kobe Bryant sat out, with some calling for the Black Mamba to remain on the sidelines more often. However, the Lakers need all the help they can get right now, with Steve Nash and rookie Julius Randle both out for the season.
Talking about Julius Randle brings me to my next point – the deluge of season-ending injuries suffered by big-name rookies this campaign. Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid and Randle will all miss the 2014-15 NBA season. They were the second, third and seventh picks of the 2014 NBA draft respectively.
In addition, Aaron Gordon (the fourth pick), Doug McDermott (the 11th pick) and Mitch McGary (the 21st pick) all remain out for an extended period, with other rookies suffering similar fates earlier in the season. The NBA must ask what it can do to better prevent these injuries from occurring so soon in young players’ careers.
Finally, there are those teams who have lost key pieces for the year, and will struggle to replace the talents that they bring. Cleveland and Los Angeles were mentioned earlier, and the Indiana Pacers can be added to that list too. With Paul George out for the season, the Pacers may fail to make the playoffs.
The New York Knicks have much deeper problems than injuries, but on a talentless roster, injuries hurts that much more. Going into the Clippers game on Wednesday (which they lost, their ninth straight game dropped), they had seven players injured. Iman Shumpert is out indefinitely, with Cleanthony Early also inactive.
Samuel Dalembert and Amar’e Stoudemire both did not dress, being listed as questionable and doubtful respectively heading into the game. J.R. Smith and Andrea Bargnani also were questionable, but ended up providing little production. Carmelo was probable, and led the team with 19 points on 7-18 shooting.
It is clear that injuries remain one of the biggest hurdles for NBA teams to overcome each season, and it leads to many questions. Why aren’t teams diversifying their rosters with greater talent so if one man goes down another can step up? Why are so many rookies getting injured so early on in their first seasons? How important is that one player to your team if you can still win without him?
I’m sure as the new year begins and the NBA season begins to wear on, we might have a few answers.
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