NBA commissioner Adam Silver
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Tyrese Haliburton’s Achilles injury cast a shadow over Game 7 of the NBA Finals as he became the latest high-profile player to fall victim to the particular setback. Adam Silver revealed the league has assembled a panel in the hopes of addressing the issue, but the organization has put itself in a very awkward spot in the wake of its crusade to dissuade players from taking days off.
Injuries sadly come with the territory when you make a living as a professional athlete, and while players in this day and age have access to a ton of resources to minimize the risk of a setback, there’s only so much you can do to avoid falling victim to one.
Tyrese Haliburton battled through a calf injury in the hopes he’d be able to lead the Pacers to a win over the Thunder in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Unfortunately, that showdown was marred by the devastating moment when he collapsed to the court in pain before being diagnosed with the torn Achilles tendon that most people who watched the countless replays ABC subjected viewers to surmised he’d suffered.
That came after Jayson Tatum and Damian Lillard befell the same fate earlier in the playoffs, and Dejounte Murray, James Wiseman, Isaiah Jackson, and Dru Smith comprised the quartet of players who also tore their Achilles during the regular season.
On Wednesday, Adam Silver acknowledged the NBA had tapped a number of medical experts to examine the potential causes of the recent Achilles plague while speaking with ESPN during the draft, saying:
“We had seven this year. We had zero last year under the exact same circumstances. The most we’ve ever had in a season is four.
When we look back at the last 10 years, the majority of the Achilles injuries have happened before the All-Star break. So, it’s not clear it’s the number of games.
And as you know, modern NBA players, even when they’re not playing games sometimes in the summer they’re working harder than they are during the season when they’re playing three games a week.”
He also noted the league has plans to use A.I. to potentially identify overlooked factors (because of course it does) and pledged it’s taking the matter “very seriously.”
However, it’s hard to ignore the fact that this is coming from the same man who had an instrumental role in instituting the policies the NBA rolled out in order to discourage the practice of “load management.”
That included the decision to fine teams who rest star players in big games and establishing a minimum threshold for award eligibility that disincentivizes healthy guys from sitting out to recover from the grind of the season.
There are obviously plenty of factors that can contribute to an Achilles tear, and I’m not trying to assert that the crackdown on load management is directly correlated with the recent spike (as Silver noted, there weren’t any cases when the NBA put the new load management rules into place ahead of the 2023-24 campagin).
With that said, wear and tear can certainly exacerbate the risk, and while I believe Silver when he says the NBA is genuinely concerned about the recent trend, I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest he and the league shoulder a degree of culpability.