How Injuries Have Affected the NBA Playoffs.
This NBA season has been like no other season in NBA history. It started off with the Covid-19 pandemic. This forced last season to finish later than the past seasons. Because of this the NBA was forced to have an shortened season with only 72 games. This also made for an short turnaround for the players. This leads into the topic I will be talking about today, just how bad have injuries affected the playoffs.
Golden State Warriors- One of the greatest franchises of all time and certainly of the 2010’s. The Warriors had injuries in there 2019 NBA finals run in which they had Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson both go down with injuries. Durant left that offseason to go to the Brooklyn Nets and Thompson stayed with the Warriors. The following year Klay missed the year with an tore ACL and he was resting. Also Stephen Curry the Warriors face of there franchise was dealing with ankle injuries. For this reason the Warriors had one of the worst records in the NBA and landed the number two overall pick in the 2020 draft. With the second pick the Warriors selected James Wiseman. When everything was looking good for the Warriors more injuries happened. First Klay goes down with an achilles injury. Then Wiseman goes down with an knee injury and is out for the rest of the year. When things could not get any worse Kelly Oubre Jr. hurts his wrist at the end of the year and misses the play in tournament. With all of these guys out due to injury the Warriors had to hope Stephen Curry would have an outstanding game just to have an hope to make the playoffs. Curry did just that but because of his supporting cast being out due to injury the Warriors were eliminated in the play in tournament.
Los Angeles Lakers- The defending NBA champions were looking to make it back to the title game this season but once again the injury bug came around and caught up to the Lakers. A similar story to the one of the Warriors they were coming off a great season in which the won the NBA finals in the bubble. But because of the shortest turnaround any team had to face the injuries started to pile up on the Lakers. It started off as a great year because LeBron was in MVP form but then LeBron and Anthony Davis both got injured. The Lakers were without two of there biggest pieces for most of the season and which this landed them to be an seven seed. The Lakers were forced to be in the play in tournament and beat the also injured Warriors to make it in as an seven seed against the Phoenix Suns. After the first two games the series was tied at two games a piece. Then once again injuries struck. Anthony Davis went down with an injury that caused him to be out a couple of games and then the game that he did play in caused him to be an non factor. The Lakers looked like an team that could possibly look to go back-to-back as champions but just like what happened with the Warriors the injuries pilled on top of them and caused for an horrible year.
Brooklyn Nets- The Nets were a team that everybody was looking forward to seeing at full health. Last season Kyrie Irving was having problems with his shoulder and Kevin Durant was still recovering from his injury with the Warriors. Then after about five weeks into the season the Nets pulled off one of the biggest blockbuster trades in a long time. In this trade the Nets acquired James Harden the MVP from the Houston Rockets. This made the Nets automatic championship favorites. The moves were not down though because the Nets also landed former lob city member Blake Griffin after the Pistons released him and also traded for big man LaMarcus Aldridge. The injuries set in as quickly as the players all got to New York. Aldridge was found to have an irregular heartbeat. This caused him to retire from the NBA and the Nets had already lost an big piece before they even got started together. As the season progressed the Nets were only able to play an hand full of games with there big three together. They made the playoffs as the two seed. The made it past the Celtics easy and then were faced with the Milwaukee Bucks. Heading into game four the Nets were down in the series 2–1. They won this game but it came with a big cost. Kyrie Irving went down with an fractured foot and was going to be out for the rest of the series. Also after the Nets lost in game seven it was discovered that James Harden had been playing on one leg because he had hurt his hamstring. This is one of the worst ways injuries happened this year just because of all the potential the Nets had.
Los Angeles Clippers- The Clippers were a team that was coming off a playoff to forget in which they blew an 3–1 lead to the Denver Nuggets. This year the Clippers entered the year as an four seed into the playoffs. Everything was looking good as the Clippers made it through in a close game seven series against the Dallas Mavericks. The Clippers then go on and play the Jazz in which they defeated them in six games. This series came with one of the biggest cost of all the playoffs. Kawhi Leonard was injured and was later discovered to have an torn ACL in which he would be out for the rest of the playoffs. The Clippers would now be forced to play without there best players who had brought them to the playoffs and had help lead them into the western conference finals. The Clippers did all they could to make the series as close as possible but ended up coming short and losing in six games. This was one of the worst injuries that could have happened to the Clippers and it cost them not having a shot to make the finals and win it all.
Conclusion- As you can see by just the few teams that had injuries this year during the season and also during the playoffs. This is part of the reason why the playoffs have not been as entertaining this season because of all the star players being injured. One case of this is the Phoenix Suns who have not beat an fully healthy team during the playoffs. This is part of the reason why fans like myself find it hard to take the Suns run as serious as other runs in the past because they have failed to beat an fully healthy team all year. Thank you for reading my first article I have made on this app.
