Dropping Like Flies

It's certainly not looking good for the New York Knicks.  Already overmatched against an extremely talented Miami Heat team, the Knicks have been decimated by injuries late in the 2012 season.  Jeremy Lin has been out for weeks and, given the way the series against Miami has been going, appears unlikely to return to action this season.  Amare Stoudemire has been banged up all year, and isn't the same player he was prior to the injuries he's suffered over the past few months.  Iman Shumpert is out for months with a knee injury, Baron Davis isn't 100% and a host of other players (including Jared Jeffries and Tyson Chandler) are hurt as well.  While the chances of a healthy Knicks team taking down Miami were slim, the odds of a decimated New York club getting the job done might be zero.

The Knicks are hardly the only NBA team to have suffered an inordinate number of serious injuries this season, however.  The Orlando Magic are without star center Dwight Howard for the remainder of the season, Miami has been without Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh for long stretches (though both are currently playing well) and Kobe Bryant has missed significant time for the Lakers.  Most recently, the Clippers' Caron Butler broke his hand and, even more significantly, reigning MVP and Chicago star Derrick Rose tore his ACL and will miss the rest of the playoffs.  Although Commissioner David Stern insists that these injuries are not the result of the NBA's post-lockout compressed schedule, you have to wonder if so much game action, combined with so little rest, has affected player health.  Philadelphia head coach Doug Collins, for one, disagrees with Stern's assessment:

"I don't think there's any question.  The wear and tear -- I don't think there's any question, the fatigue. What happens during the playoffs, it gets ratcheted up even more. All of a sudden in two games, you've seen Shumpert, D-Rose. Howard was out before the playoffs started. Caron Butler broke a hand last night.  Now, these things all could have happened. Who knows? But I think the wear and tear, there's no question, it has taken its toll."

When the NBA signed a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Players Association and announced its compressed 66-game regular season, many (myself included) were concerned that the lack of off days and practice time would lead to sloppy basketball and fatigue.  No one could have predicted, however, that the 2011-12 season would be marred by so many injuries to star players.  While the NBA was desperate to keep the number of games up in order to protect revenues and get as much as possible out of the game's stars, it seems increasingly likely that the league's short-sighted scheduling has contributed to hurting some of the game's most marketable assets.  Lin, Rose and Howard are the poster children for the NBA's ill-advised decision to rush back in time for Christmas and cram 66 games into a four month schedule.  As a result of the packed itinerary, the game has lost some of it's brightest stars just when it needs them the most - the playoffs.

In my opinion, anyone who contests that the rash of injuries is not at least partly related to the compressed schedule is, at best, in denial and, at worst, a liar.  As it often does, the NBA made a crucial decision based only on the "here and now," without thinking of the potential consequences.  At least partly as a result, we have to watch an NBA playoffs without Superman (Howard), the defending league MVP (Rose) and the game's biggest surprise in history (Lin).  Even sadder for me, without Lin and Shumpert it looks like I may have to watch the Knicks suffer through another first round sweep at the hands of a bitter Eastern Conference rival.