Injuries are an inherent part of sports. When athletes push their bodies as hard as they can, they are bound to pick up some bumps and bruises, especially in the world of professional sports, where these athletes spend months at a time playing to the max of their capabilities.
However, in the NBA, in particular, injuries seem to have become increasingly common, which isn’t exactly great news for the players, fans, or the game itself. And if you ask Mark Jackson , there’s one big reason why injuries are increasing across the league.
Mark's eye-opening thoughts on injuries in the NBA
Jackson played 17 years in the NBA, and he rarely missed games unless he absolutely had to. 'Action' played in all 82 contests during nine of his 17 seasons, including one year where he played in 83 games after he was traded midway through the campaign.
Nowadays, seeing guys play in all 82 games is a rarity, due in large part to injuries. While the NBA and its teams do their best to protect their players, Jackson thinks the overprotection of guys by not having them practice as much as they used to is leading to all this time off the court.
“I believe that the reason why we seeing so many injuries is because of the different time,” Mark said on The Mark Jackson Show . “I talked about winning the Rookie of the Year trophy and then going to play in the park the next day at 3:30 in the afternoon with regular dudes. Today, they would say, ‘No, don’t do that. You’re damaging your legs, or you’re risking injury, or you wanna take care of your body.’”
“Today, you need to tell me you have a masseuse, you have chefs, you don’t practice, you have private planes, you have the finest hotels, you have your individual workout now. Everything you can imagine, they spend millions and millions of dollars,” Jackson continued.
“I believe that we have failed these players, not by giving them all these things, but by not putting a demand on the work. The way you get better is by working, the way you get better is by practicing. You don’t have to practice like we practiced. We did all of that without all those things and practiced for two-and-a-half, three hours every day, and I mean getting after it. That was foolish, that made no sense. But, to the same extent, not practicing makes no sense. Let’s put our work in, individually and collectively, let’s take care of our bodies,” 'Action' concluded.
Does Jackson’s NBA injury stance make sense?
This is an interesting take from Mark because he seems to think the precautions taken for these players are backfiring. While teams are trying to keep their players as healthy as possible, they may be inadvertently making them more liable to injuries.
As Jackson notes, teams go out of their way to make their players’ lives as easy as possible. They proverbially put their guys in bubble wrap, limiting any possible way they could suffer an injury or wear down their bodies unnecessarily.
It’s a stark contrast from what players did during Mark's time in the league. He was always playing basketball whenever he could, whether it was in games, practice, or going down to his local park and playing pick-up games with random people.
While the intent is good, Jackson believes that the lack of work these players are doing is causing their bodies to respond poorly when they go full throttle in live-game action. Mark’s perspective is unique, and who knows, maybe he could be onto something.
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