The NBA had already convened a panel of experts to study Achilles tendon injuries even before Indiana star Tyrese Haliburton ruptured his in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, Commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday night.
The league had seven known Achilles injuries this season — Pacers forwards James Wiseman and Isaiah Jackson, New Orleans guard Dejounte Murray and Miami guard Dru Smith had them in the regular season, and Boston’s Jayson Tatum, Milwaukee’s Damian Lillard and Haliburton were hurt in the playoffs.
Silver, speaking to ESPN as part of its NBA draft coverage, said there weren’t any in the NBA in the previous season.
“We had already convened a panel of experts before Tyrese’s most recent Achilles rupture,” Silver said on the telecast. “We had seven this year. We had zero last year under the exact same circumstances. The most we’ve ever had in a season is four.”
The injuries led to a question that has come up more and more in recent years: Is the NBA season too long? Silver doesn’t believe that is the case, and wonders if the way young players train and how hard NBA players train in the offseason is putting too much strain on bodies.
“When we look back at the last 10 years, the majority of the Achilles injuries have happened before the All-Star break,” Silver said. “So, it’s not clear it’s the number of games. And as you know, modern NBA players, even when they’re not playing games sometimes in the summer they’re working harder than they are during the season when they’re playing three games a week.”
Haliburton got hurt in the first quarter of Game 7, one where Indiana went on to lose to Oklahoma City. A day later, after having surgery, Haliburton said he doesn’t regret the choice to play through a strained calf — which some suspect could have played a role in the Achilles injury.
Silver said the league is even using artificial intelligence in its search for clues about why the injury happened so often this season.
“I’m hopeful that by looking at more data, by looking at patterns, this is one area where A.I. — people are talking about how that’s going to transform so many areas — the ability with A.I. to ingest all video of every game a player’s played in to see if you can detect some pattern that we didn’t realize that leads to an Achilles injury,” Silver said. “We’re taking it very seriously.”