From Andrew Bynum to Derrick Rose, from Rajon Rondo to most recently Kobe Bryant, the 2012-13 NBA season has been defined as much by who has been absent compared to who has actually been on the court. Although there haven't necessarily been any more injuries than usual, they have tended to strike atypically high-profile players.
Consider that Bryant is without question the greatest star ever to suffer a ruptured Achilles. A few other Hall of Famers have done so, including Nate "Tiny" Archibald some four decades ago and Dominique Wilkins more recently, but Bryant's injury might be the most serious ever suffered by an inner-circle Hall of Famer, at least one still playing at a high level.
Consider further that Rose is the only MVP ever to suffer a torn ACL, and although that injury technically happened last season, it continues to loom large this season. So, too, does Rondo's ACL tear. And the No. 1 overall pick of this year's NBA draft might even be used on a player with a torn ACL, Kentucky center Nerlens Noel.
The 15 members of last season's three All-NBA teams will combine to miss at least 297 games this season. Two years ago, the last time the league played an 82-game schedule, they combined to miss just 115 games -- an atypically low figure. Bynum (all 82 after his knees failed to respond to offseason surgery) and Kevin Love (64) will sit out more games together than all 15 All-NBA players from 2009-10 did the following season.
Injuries will continue to loom over the playoffs, with Bryant -- presuming the Lakers can hold on to their spot -- and Rondo both sitting out. Meanwhile, the debate about whether Rose will or should come back will continue to rage on until he suits up or the Chicago Bulls are eliminated, whichever comes first.
The injury database I've compiled with the help of volunteers Dirk van Duym and Joe Dombrowski covering the past four seasons can shed further light on the role of injuries in the 2012-13 campaign.
• Besides those missing in action during the postseason, injuries have also played an important role in determining which teams made the postseason. Bynum's absence turned the Philadelphia 76ers from a team expected to contend in the Atlantic Division to a lottery club. Based on Bynum's SCHOENE projection, his injury alone cost the Sixers 13.3 wins above replacement, making it the second-most costly injury in the league after Rose's torn ACL (15.8 WARP). Although it probably wasn't reasonable to expect Bynum to play a full season given his history of knee problems, 13 wins would be enough to lift Philadelphia into the race for the fifth seed.
If the Lakers miss the playoffs, they can also point to injuries as a culprit. They rank in the league's top 10 in games, minutes and wins lost to injury. Besides Bryant's ruptured Achilles, the Lakers have seen all four other starters miss time due to injuries, while key reserve Jordan Hill was lost to hip surgery in early January. And the six games Dwight Howard has missed due to the torn labrum in his right shoulder don't reflect his limitations coming off back surgery last April.
More than anything, the injuries kept the Lakers from building chemistry as a team. According to NBA.com/Stats, their starting lineup played just 189 minutes together all season long. By contrast, the league's most common lineup (the Oklahoma City Thunder's starting five) has logged more than 1,300 minutes.
Of course, the Lakers will get no sympathy from the Minnesota Timberwolves. Injuries, starting with Love's preseason hand injury that never healed correctly, doomed the Timberwolves' chances of competing for their first playoff berth since 2004. All told, Minnesota players have missed 342 games due to injury, easily surpassing the previous high in my database (311 by the 2009-10 Portland Trail Blazers).
All five Timberwolves starters missed at least 18 games, or more than a fifth of the season, and their combined total of 203 games missed would put Minnesota in the league's top five in games lost without even considering the rest of the roster. The Timberwolves lost 15.1 wins above replacement to injuries, or more than nine wins more than the average team (5.8). Add nine wins to their total, and they would be competing for a .500 season.
• At the other end of the spectrum, two teams in particular continue to distinguish themselves in terms of injury prevention. The work of the Phoenix Suns' training staff is well documented, and I highlighted it on Basketball Prospectus a year ago. Technically, Phoenix finished in the middle of the pack in games missed (126, 15th most), but this was entirely due to Channing Frye sitting out the season because of a heart issue (dilated cardiomyopathy). Jermaine O'Neal and Marcin Gortat were the lone other Suns to sit out more than five games, and that qualifies as miraculous in the case of the injury-plagued O'Neal, who was more effective on the court than he has been in years.
Alas, Frye's injury allowed the Thunder to surpass Phoenix as the team with the fewest games lost due to injury over the four-year span in my database. Oklahoma City has lost just 27 games this season, the league's lowest total, but more telling is that the Thunder lost 400 minutes due to injury -- barely a third of the next-lowest total (Sacramento Kings, 899).
The two 2011-12 All-NBA picks who did not miss any time due to injury this season were Oklahoma City stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Durant has missed 14 total games in his six-year career, while Westbrook has never sat out as either a pro or a collegian.
The Thunder benefit, surely, from having such a young core. Even the team's veterans, however, have shown remarkable durability. That's a credit to the athletic training staff led by Joe Sharpe, who was hired as head athletic trainer when the team moved to Oklahoma City in 2008.
Thanks to Dan Feldman of the TrueHoop Network for using my injury data to create the chart above that compares teams in terms of games, minutes and WARP lost and also highlights the most serious individual injuries. Here's how it works: I multiply each player's games lost by MPG and WARP/game when healthy. For players who missed the entire season, I use 2011-12 MPG and SCHOENE's projection for WARP/game.