A serious analysis of the Blazers and Injuries

You wish!

 

I like big butts y no puedo mentir
Usted otros hermanos no se puede negar
Que cuando una chica entra con una cintura pequeños y chicos
Y una cosa redonda en su cara
Usted consigue surgido, quieren sacar su dura
Porque usted cuenta de que estaba llena a tope
En lo profundo de los vaqueros que lleva puesto
Estoy enganchado y no puedo dejar de mirar
Oh nena, quiero estar contigo
Y tomar su imagen
Mis cuates trató de advertir a
Pero que culo tienes me hace tan caliente
Ooh, Asiento-o'-suave piel
Dices que quieres estar en mi Benz?
Bueno, yo uso, úsame
Porque no es que groupie promedio
Los he visto bailando
Al diablo con romancin '
Ella es el sudor, mojado,
Got it goin 'como un turbo' Vette
Estoy cansado de revistas
colillas plana Diciendo son lo
Tome el negro promedio y pedirle que
Ella tiene mucho de nuevo pack
Así que, muchachos! (¡Sí!) Muchachos! (¡Sí!)
¿Su novia se la culata? (El infierno sí!)
Diles a agitar! (Shake it!) Shake it! (Shake it!)
Agitar que culo sano!
Baby Got Back!

 

The reason that Chris titled the thread "serious" is that these injury discussions always become a lot of joking about hexes and superstitions.

Someone should make a list of injuries back to Walton. I think it would show that the team has gone relatively injury-free for long periods. Then we could stop the nonsense about how this team has always been cursed, and figure out when this started recently.

Step 1 A serious thread would first determine the time period.
Step 2 Only then can you list all the possible causes.
Step 3 Only then can you give reasons for why one is the true cause and others aren't.

 

It's true that during the 90s and early in this decade injuries were not a major problem (except Sabonis, who came with). Maybe it's some law of averages? But I do think the Blazers need to seriously examine the work out and conditioning. Yes, luck is a factor, but some players go their entire career with nothing worse than a turned ankle while others never seem to stay healthy. And some players who go deep in the playoffs year after year, all those extra games, seem none the worse for it. Looking at the facility would be a good idea as well. Not a hell of a lot can be done about the schedule or travel. But didn't the team fairly recently move from Blazer One customized plane to charter? Charter flights with regular airplane seats as opposed to the custom plane with oversized couches and chairs? Could that make a difference?

I'm just throwing out ideas here since none of us really have solid information. Looking at planes at least makes more sense than a curse, but if we do decide to sacrifice a poster I have a couple of nominees.

 

Spot on.

Maybe part of that has been a consequence of our huge playoff streak. If you never fall deep into the lottery and you aren't the Lakers, it's pretty damned hard to get a franchise player. So you have to gamble a little on guys with more elite talent but red flags in the injury department. Pippen, Smitty, Miles, Grant....and then when you finally do get in the lottery and get your shot at the gold, it's in the culture to disregard injuries (and you want out of there ASAP), so you go for more red flaggers like Batum, Aldridge, Roy and Oden.

Aldridge and Batum appear to be good gambles, and even with Roy we got more productivity out of him than Randy Foye will ever see. So it's not necessarily always a losing strategy.

 

I'd also add that the Pareto Principle applies to practically everything. 20% of any activity generates 80% of the results. 20% of most companies' customer bases generate 80% of the profits. 20% of the work you do generates 80% of your productivity. Even in the NBA, 20% of the franchises seem to win about 80% of the championships.

Well, for whatever reason, maybe 20% of the franchises have 80% of the major injuries. And we happen to be one of those unlucky franchises.

 

Przybilla - no history of knee injuries.
Camby - no history of knee injuries.
Pendergraph - no history of knee injuries. Had a hip issue, but that was resolved and wasn't a factor in the knee injury.
Oden - no history of knee injuries. Yeah, he had a wrist issue and the old "one leg is shorter than the other", but does anyone really think that should have been a red flag about him ultimately needing microfracture surgery on both knees?

So Roy and Williams, I'll give you. The rest is just the breaks of the game - no pun intended.

 

Well, the common theme in that list is that they are all guys who play pretty physical in-the-paint games. Maybe as the NBA gets more loaded with bigger, more physical, defensive-oriented interior players (see this post in the other thread) it's getting harder to keep those kinds of players from sustaining injury?

 

I sorted the ideas in this thread. Excerpts follow. I count 8 theories offered so far.
-------------
1) luck, hex, superstition

2) law of averages...It's true that during the 90s and early in this decade injuries were not a major problem (except Sabonis, who came with). Maybe it's some law of averages?...the Pareto Principle applies to practically everything. 20% of any activity generates 80% of the results. 20% of most companies' customer bases generate 80% of the profits. 20% of the work you do generates 80% of your productivity. Even in the NBA, 20% of the franchises seem to win about 80% of the championships. Well, for whatever reason, maybe 20% of the franchises have 80% of the major injuries. And we happen to be one of those unlucky franchises.

3) Does the "Nateball" style of play put the players at a greater risk of injury than other styles of play? Does his substitution patterns put players at increased risk due to them being overtired from prolonged play with no rest and/or sitting on the bench too long to loosen back up for gameplay once re-inserted back into the game?

4) Is the Blazer training staff and doctors, and the way they prepare players for gameplay actually contibuting to the player's injuries?

5) Are the floors at either the practice facility or at the Rose Garden harder/softer/more or less forgiving to impact, that's contributing to the deterioration of knees and legs?... Looking at the facility would be a good idea.

6) Does the day-to-day scheduling of practices/travel/gameplay/rest in any way contribute to the injuries? Are players not being given enough time to recover after workouts, or being given too much time off and their muscles atrophying to the point of not being able to withstand the pounding of an NBA game?...I do wonder if Nate's hard practices and ability to motivate players to play at 110% every night doesn't wear them down prematurely...Not a hell of a lot can be done about the schedule or travel. But didn't the team fairly recently move from Blazer One customized plane to charter? Charter flights with regular airplane seats as opposed to the custom plane with oversized couches and chairs?

7) If you draft and trade for players with red flags on their physicals or guys who have had tendencies to injuries don't act so shocked when they get injured...Maybe part of that has been a consequence of our huge playoff streak. If you never fall deep into the lottery and you aren't the Lakers, it's pretty damned hard to get a franchise player. So you have to gamble a little on guys with more elite talent but red flags in the injury department. Pippen, Smitty, Miles, Grant....and then when you finally do get in the lottery and get your shot at the gold, it's in the culture to disregard injuries (and you want out of there ASAP), so you go for more red flaggers like Batum, Aldridge, Roy and Oden...with Roy we got more productivity out of him than Randy Foye will ever see. So it's not necessarily always a losing strategy.

8) Well, the common theme in that [injured] list is that they are all guys who play pretty physical in-the-paint games. Maybe as the NBA gets more loaded with bigger, more physical, defensive-oriented interior players (see this post in the other thread) it's getting harder to keep those kinds of players from sustaining injury?

 

A note: Darius Miles, Zach Randolph, Isaiah Rider, Derek Anderson, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Theo Ratliff all missed significant time with injuries before McMillian joined the team.

 

True enough, but I think you have to throw Derek Anderson and Theo out of that list, because they have been "hurt" everywhere they went. Sometimes it was only their feelings that were hurt, but that was enough to keep them on the bench.

 

I prefer having a bad roster and sucking because of lack of talent, over having one of the most talented rosters in the league with the majority of those players getting injured.

 

For me, one of the funnest seasons in recent memory was the 2006-07 team. Yes, they went 32-50 on the season, but the team was a kick in the pants to watch and root for. They had star pieces, but really didn't have the talent or chops to get over the hump, but they sure as hell tried, night in and night out.

 

This makes sense. There's been a few studies that show when expectations are low, happiness is easier to come by. Similar studies also show that minor disappointments are weighed more heavily than minor pleasures, so if expectations are high, a win is minor, but a loss is heavier. You can have a 54-win season (which is obviously more wins than losses) and still be devastated by an injury, playoff loss, or that one win we should have got but didn't because Blake missed 4 straight free throws.

 

Other than Przy, you're spot on. Joel had knee issues with both MIL and ATL. He was a rock with us until last year, however.

I really think we need to look at our trainers. Some of it may be bad luck, some of it may be the players we draft, but some of these injuries have to fall on our conditioning and practice program. For example, who thinks it's a good idea after microfracture to create a program to make a player bigger, as we did with GO his rookie year? He should have come back in the 250s, not the 280s. Who allows Roy to return so soon after knee surgery, even though it was the playoffs?

I know the Blazers are perplexed, but perhaps that's the problem. I think they need to create an advisory board of trainers and physicians to review the practices of this team. The way they lift weights, the way they condition themselves and the way they practice.

 

Interesting question. Along those lines, I'm also curious about how many of these injuries are happening on our home court versus the other team's court?

 

I remember Joel had an ankle injury when he played for the Bucks and it cost him half a season. I don't remember any knee issues until he became a Blazer, but you may be right.

As far as the medical/training staff theory goes, it seems to me that the injuries are too diverse and are happening in too many ways for there to be any real connection. I agree with you on Oden and the weight issue, but my recollection is that it was Greg that fell in love with weight training after the first MF surgery and the Blazers had to push him to drop weight before he started playing again. Roy's knees were pretty much shot after that surgery last spring that removed the last of his meniscus. Hard to say what, if any, connection there is between playing during the playoffs and the pain that started this fall. All of that said, if I'm Paul Allen, I'd be getting some outside experts to review what's going on. A fresh set of eyes couldn't hurt.

 

Well I never parsed it out to only knee issues. But if you look at Pryzbilla he had durability issues early in his career, Oden had hip surgery in sixth grade, Camby has missed a ton of games throughout his career to various ailments ... the common theme here is that everything in your base is usually interconnected somehow, and if you are constantly injuring either your hip, your back, your knees or your feet any self respecting DO would tell you that there is usually some innate imbalance in your physiology and your body's mechanics that are contributing to those injuries. So maybe these guys are all getting hurt because of some inherent weaknesses in their bodies and then its being compounded by some kind of systemic training and conditioning errors being implemented by Bobby Medina et al.

Ian Thomsen from SI.com did a really nice piece on the Suns training staff a year or so back on their orthopedist and kinesiology influenced approach to training and how they were able to identify some of the issues that were plaguing Shaq when he was with Miami and rehab him in a new way and he's subsequently hired a guy with the same philosphy to be his personal trainer since then

 

The trainer proudly told the Oregonian of Oden's weight gain. The media told McMillan. He was displeased and got Pritchard to halt the weight gaining.