The National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Basketball Player’s Association (NBPA) certainly were not concerning themselves with the health of their players when they signed off on a condensed 66-game schedule in December. As the bitter lockout burned through the traditional free agency period, training camp, and then a good chunk of season, it became apparent that the league’s players would pay the price for a failure to negotiate with appropriate urgency.
Now a wave of injuries and exhaustion is robbing the game of its punch. Chicago’s Derrick Rose (back spasms) and New York’s Carmelo Anthony (groin) both went down on Monday night. Then it was Danilo Gallinari – the prime piece that NYC traded to Denver for Melo – going down in Denver with a bone chip fracture in his foot. Finally it was former Nugget/Knick and current LA Clipper Chauncey Billups limping out of a rare Clipper victory in Orlando with an achilles injury. And this is just one night in the 2012 NBA.
The Nuggets also lost Nene (heel) and Arron Afflalo (ankle/toe) on Saturday and have been without center Timofey Mozgov (ankle) through a brutal stretch of three straight losses. In fact, Denver has lost 5 of 6 games over a packed 9-day stretch that had them playing in four cities, including a back-to-back-to-back flying to Los Angeles, returning home to Denver, and then departing immediately for Portland.
Even the Nuggets – who began the season with the best depth in the league – are now struggling to compete after holding the second-best record in the Western Conference until last week. Charles Barkley loudly proclaimed on TNT last week that the league’s product had been diluted, saying he was “embarrassed” about the state of the NBA. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban lashed out at Commissioner David Stern for failing to hire more referees to offset the frantic schedule.
“Some of these guys are having really bad nights, and it's having an impact,” said Cuban after a tough loss to the West-best Thunder in Dallas last Wednesday that featured some truly atrocious officiating. “The league's got to come out and say, 'OK, look, we understand they're going through some tough travel or whatever. It's just the way it is.’” Cuban was fined $75,000 by the NBA the following day.
Most teams have only played 25 games out of the 66 contests packed into a four-month window. The wave of injuries has just begun. As this harsh season wears on, the league will have to face the very real possibility that the “best” team will simply be the one that can stay healthy into early May. Hopefully the NBA and NBPA hammered out a very lucrative Collective Bargaining Agreement in December 2011, because it may end up costing them the quality of their on-court product in 2012.
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