Lakers Injuries Were Expected

By Craig Kwasniewski

Injuries are a part of the game.

Take away 60% of any team's starting five and they'll have problems too.

This is just bad luck... we'll be fine when everyone's healthy.

Enough with the excuses! As the Lakers' season falls deeper and deeper into Bolivia, the front office continues to spew out excuses left and right. Besides the obvious basketball problems (the Smush Parker Era, poor defensive play, tougher schedule than earlier in the season, the Brian Cook Era, youth), the real problem lies with the Lakers dependency on injury prone players.

Below is a list of the five Lakers that have missed significant portions of the season along with the average number of games they play each year. (I didn't count the rookie season because of the many DNP-CD's for rookies.):

Kwame Brown - 67.0 games
Chris Mihm - 67.2 games
Lamar Odom - 63.0 games
Vladimir Radmanovic - 72.3 games
Luke Walton - 65.0 games

So the Lakers are looking at 15 missed games from five of their top eight players each season. Not the best way to utilize Kobe Bryant's prime years is it?

I know every team suffers injuries, and it comes down to the overall depth in talent to survive. The problem with the Lakers is that their front office is trying to rebuild on the fly with players who simply can't go a full season. They're hoping that a combination of a talented training staff and luck will keep these five players on the floor. Keeping fingers crossed is not the best way to build a championship contender.

One of my favorite lines in sports is, "you are what you are." Unfortunately for Laker fans, Mitch Kupchak doesn't follow this notion. So expect more of the same in 07-08... good times.

Comments

[basketbawful]

When we were debating the Lakers as contenders, I couldn't shake the feeling that a group of unproven, injury-prone players wouldn't keep playing at a high level once they were forced to perform on the road during the long grind of the NBA season.

And yeah, they couldn't.

But this isn't an "I told ya so" comment. It's more of an "I can't believe how many injuries there've been this season" comment. Seriously, is there a single healthy roster in the league? Are there any teams that haven't lost one or more starters for at least 10 to 15 games? I thought these guys were bigger and stronger than ever?

[Craig]

"I can't believe how many injuries there've been this season"

I agree. There was an article a few weeks ago in the LA Times where Lakers trainer Gary Vitti pointed to improved diagnosis as the reason for extended injuries. Basically slight nagging injuries that would previously go unnoticed are resulting in players sitting out games for cautionary reasons. With all the money involved, teams are very reluctant to throw players out there unless they are 95% healthy. The whole Luke Walton saga is one of these examples. He's missed two more weeks with ankle tendonitis. Back in the 80's everyone had tendonitis (identified as “sore” as in a “sore ankle”). Now it's two-weeks of rest and re-evaluation.

[aceboonkk]

Injuries expected?!

Victories and injuries go hand in hand more than most people realize. My high-school coach broke it down like this: 'If you can last two more minutes than the other team, you will win the game'.

... last two more minutes... how? Training.

The better the training, the better the team. Teams that come back from being down, have great trainers, they're in condition.

They don't get hurt as easily, and they bounce back from injury more quickly.

Since the Spurs put Will Sevening on as the athletic trainer, they've done very well. They have the best winning record of any team in any major sport. (NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL)

One day NBA teams will start to realize this. Instead of worthless coaches like Isiah Thomas getting multi-year multi-million dollar contracts, the trainers and strength and conditioning coaches will start making money.

NBA games are much like horse races, can you out-sprint the routers, or out-last the sprinters. I was a huge golden state fan during the Run-TMC days. It was a lot of fun to watch high-powered offenses collide. Teams knew, all they had to do was outlast them, and ultimately Tim, Mitch, and Chris all ended their careers without earning a ring. Well okay, Mitch got the ring with LA, but he didn't do anything to actually earn it.

[sildenafil citrate]

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