Hurt locker rooms: The four injury risks today's young players face

_GB · Jul 8, 2015

Games missed because of injury league-wide (4,649) came in just above average (4,603) in a non-lockout year over the past decade, and down from 2013's 4,989, the high in the 10-year span. But several experts are concerned.

"It's not a fluke," said Dr. Mike Clark, a former physical therapist for the Phoenix Suns, who have what's widely considered to be the league's top training staff.
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Many say the injuries are indicative of four key issues players face in today's NBA: poorer sleep, in part because of technology; weaker bones, in part because of low calcium and high sugar intake; an uptick in wear and tear, thanks largely to players specializing in basketball at a young age; and weaker muscles, as a result of shucking traditional weight training for more en-vogue methods.
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http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/13217004/the-four-injury-risks-today-young-nba-players-face

_GB · Jul 8, 2015

"I think you only have so many jumps and landings in your body before it begins to break down, and you can go down through every body part and say the same thing -- each one has a separate number," DiFrancesco said. "There's no way to go back and get those miles back, but there's ways to manage their overall workload."
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A similar dilemma exists in baseball. Wrote Sam Miller in an ESPN The Magazine story this year on Tommy John surgeries: "The sport has put a time bomb in every pitcher's body, a time bomb that starts ticking when they get good -- because they get good."

"We enjoy playing the game so much," McDermott said. "That's our life. We'd rather be playing. We want to get up every day and compete. It's hard to tell a kid, 'No, take a day off.'

"I'm looking back on my AAU days and you're playing three or four games in a day and then instead of going to Whole Foods like I am now and getting food, we were going to frickin' McDonald's or Burger King and eating that stuff in between games and we were fine. It's just the way it is."

Randle shook his head when he looked back on his AAU career, which began when he was 8.

"It's crazy, because you've got guys like Andrew [Wiggins], Joel [Embiid], Jabari [Parker], Aaron Gordon -- those guys were the same guys that when I was in fifth grade playing in every tournament, whether it was in Houston or Washington DC or AAU Nationals," Randle said. "Those guys were in every single tournament that I played against. They were there at every point, putting the same amount of miles on their body."
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Hurt locker rooms: The four injury risks today's young players face

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