APBRmetrics

AJax · Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:27 am Post subject: Database of injuries?

Hello all, I'm wondering if there is a database of injuries suffered by NBA players.

I was thinking about this after seeing a video of Tracy McGrady in the bad old days of the Orlando Magic. He was an absolute force of nature, a monstrous above-the-rim finisher, an amazing shot-blocker for a guard, and the fiercest dunker this side of Vince Carter.

What happened? A lot of things: moving to a better team, with a different coach, with a big post-up player, getting older. But also a back injury.

Of course, all players slow down in the later days of their careers. Even Jordan wasn't the above-the-rim force in his later years. But McGrady just doesn't seem anywhere close to the old player, and I can only assume a back injury limits him more than Jeff Van Gundy.

I'm interested in assembling some sort of database on the effects of different kinds of injuries on players. For a start, you could get a large enough sample size to look at the average PER drop-off among different kinds of injuries or surgeries.

It seems that some body parts are just more crucial and difficult to recover from. Foot injuries are common and some elite players like Duncan bounce back from pretty bad ones; knee surgeries are considerably more damaging and it seems like many of the bad contract flops revolve around knee problems (Allan Houston, Kenyon Martin, Brian Grant); upper body injuries like necks seem dangerous but some players players (e.g. TJ Ford) seem to be able to recover from them with little problem.

A confounding factor is that I think players are getting serious injuries younger. Now Greg Oden and Nene and Amare Stoudemire are having microfracture knee surgery before age 21; that may change the recovery curve for these injuries.

Any thoughts on this are much appreciated. Thanks.

HoopStudies · Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:15 pm Post subject:

My thoughts are

- Good luck.
- Degree of injury is hard to know.
- Will you just get reports from the media?
- Don't give yourself an injury while putting it together.
_________________
Dean Oliver
Author, Basketball on Paper
http://www.basketballonpaper.com

Eli W · Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 286

Here is the best source I know for injury history:

http://n-c-systems.com/hoops/Search/Search.php
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Eli W. (formerly John Quincy)
CountTheBasket.com

AJax · Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:41 pm Post subject:

OK, I'll admit I'm not killing myself to collect this data.

It just seems that while we've developed decent analytics for many, many parts of games but injuries remain unanalyzed. I can't say I've got profound insights on this, but it looks like an area that could use at least some basic descriptive statistics. Seems like it would be a valuable thing to be able to project the implications of a strained back versus plantar fasciitis.

I can't really conceive of how injury severity would be measured, maybe by consecutive games missed.

Thanks for the site link.

Carlos · Joined: 21 Jan 2005 Posts: 41 Location: Montevideo, Uruguay

Well, even if we can't get the severity of injury data right, it would be useful to have. It would facilitate research on things like replacement players, productivity of bench players moved to starters and things like that.

HoopStudies · Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:24 pm Post subject:

I tried at one point. Banged my head against a wall, it felt like. It would be nice.
_________________
Dean Oliver
Author, Basketball on Paper
http://www.basketballonpaper.com

Climate · Joined: 18 Oct 2006 Posts: 4

There is an excellent article in the official NBA.com Fantasy Draft Guide written by Stephania Bell, an orthopedic clinical specialist entitled "The NBA Injury Report".

It does give some good insight, breaking down different types of injuries regarding NBA players, and explaining them.

Ei.,chronic injuries, acute injuries, older players, younger players, etc.

HoopStudies · Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:13 pm Post subject:

AJax · Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:04 pm Post subject:

That orthopedics article is pretty interesting, here's the link:

http://www.nba.com/fantasy/draft_kit/injuryreport.html

Discusses the details of injuries to Shaun Livingston, Charlie Villanueva, Elton Brand and several others.

gabefarkas · Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 880 Location: Durham, NC

If you can find a way to parse through Patricia Bender's site, that should probably be near the top of your list of places to look.