It’s been a rough couple days for elite point guards in the NBA’s postseason, Steph Curry sprained his right MCL and Chris Paul broke his right hand (beware Russell Westbrook and Damian Lillard). It appears the NBA postseason and the chase for the Larry O’Brien trophy will be greatly affected once again by not only who is on the court, but who isn’t.
Four of the eight first round series have been affected by a top three player on one of the two teams suffering an injury that has caused or will cause them to miss multiple games. The Warriors have lost Steph Curry, the Clippers have lost Chris Paul for the playoffs it appears, the Hornets are currently without Nicolas Batum and the Celtics may not get Avery Bradley back this postseason. That’s not even counting the severely wounded and limping versions of the Memphis Grizzlies and Dallas Mavericks that made it to the postseason.
We are still only in the first round, it would be foolish to assume that more major injuries won’t occur once we get deeper into the postseason, which has also become far more prevalent in recent years.
This is trending toward being the second year in a row where the postseason could be altered dramatically as a result of injuries. Here is a list of injuries to all-star caliber players that affected the 2015 NBA Playoffs.
Kevin Durant
Kyrie Irving
Kevin Love
Mike Conley
Pau Gasol
John Wall
Al Horford
Other major injuries that may have affected the title chase in recent years include Derrick Rose tearing his ACL in Game 1 of the 2012 NBA Playoffs after the Bulls 60 win season and Kevin Garnett’s injury late in the 2008-09 season that ended the Celtics chances to repeat as NBA champions.
Although some injuries to major players may add more intrigue to the postseason it is always a shame when a potential title is swayed heavily by the existence of injuries which could end up being the case again for the 2016 NBA Playoffs.
Here is an chart from the guys at FiveThirtyEight.com. They used their own advanced statistics and algorithms to break down the change in title odds for each team with Curry out for two weeks and with Curry out for the remainder of the postseason.
There is no telling how injuries will end up affecting the 2016 NBA postseason but one can only hope that we as fans have an opportunity to see the best and most entertaining postseason we can with all the best players in the world healthy and competing for the sport’s ultimate prize.
