Thanks to the draft, Summer League, international competitions, and foreign tours, basketball has become a year-round sport at it’s highest level. Thanks to internet streaming and networks like ESPN devoting major airtime to events such as the FIBA World Cup, fans are also able to follow along with the game throughout the calendar. But is it worth it?
The benefits of the current cycle are obvious. Summer League allows young players to develop their game in a lower-pressure environment while also allowing fans and executives to evaluate talent in game situations. Team USA playing together allows the team to gel in non-Olympic years while also helping USA Basketball refine their organizational strategy. Plus, putting all of that on television means more money and exposure for a league that has gotten closer than any other to the elusive goal of dominating the sports news cycle 12 months of the year. All of that seems great for teams, players, fans, advertisers, everybody.
Mounting physical costs this off season, however, illustrate the downside of that set up. Already we’ve seen a number of major players go down to lengthy injuries, including the reigning Most Valuable Player. These injuries have taken place months and weeks before the season has even begun and already served to drastically alter the expectations for some of last year’s elite teams.
Perhaps the injury with the biggest impact on a team’s fortunes happened in a scrimmage back in August. In just a few short seconds, Paul George fractured both bones in his lower right leg in gruesome fashion on national television. The Team USA scrimmage was abandoned, George was rushed to surgery for an injury that will most likely cost him the entire year, and Indiana’s season may have ended three months before it began.
Last year the Pacers were the class of the East, winning 56 games and claiming the top seed in their conference. They were a team that looked like a true threat to Miami’s Eastern Conference hegemony, and even though they were eventually bounced by the Heat in the Conference Finals, they looked poised to contend for the next several years. Losing Lance Stephenson to free agency and George to injury has completely flipped their expectations, and many now feel that the Pacers will finish below .500 and completely out of the playoffs. From the top to the bottom, just like that.
Less dire is the situation facing reigning MVP Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder. The MVP was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his foot over the weekend and will miss 6-8 weeks. One has to wonder whether the toll of repeated lengthy playoff appearances followed by international play (he was part of the scrimmage where George went down before pulling out of the Basketball World Cup due to “exhaustion”) played a role in the injury. The Thunder are still loaded with talent, however, as Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka are a pretty impressive pair of talents on their own. If they can keep the team afloat long enough, KD’s return will make OKC one of the NBA’s elites once again.
Still, one has to feel sorry for anyone that bet the over at Gambling.com on the Thunder’s win total. That number opened at 57.5 before Durant’s injury, and promptly fell to 52.5 after. Five wins may not seem like much, but in the hyper-competitive Western Conference every game is crucial when it comes to playoff seeding. Playing teams like the Spurs or Clippers any earlier than they need to isn’t a very welcome thought in Oklahoma City.
One from the East, one from the West have suffered injuries to major contributors (and that’s to say nothing of players like Bradley Beal who will miss six weeks with a broken wrist for the Wizards) that could play major roles in how the 2014-2015 season plays out. And we’re left to wonder if these injuries could have been avoided, left to wonder if basketball year-round is worth it.
