Injuries are always a concern for any player or coach in the NBA. With those concerns in mind, and seemingly rising league commissioner, Adam Silver told reporters before the start of the 2022 NBA Finals Thursday that there are talks about cutting down the 82-game regular season.
"I'm not against changing the format of the season," he told reporters ahead of Thursday's Game 1 of the 2022 NBA Finals. He said that was the case "if it can have a direct impact on injuries," which he wasn't sure would be the case.
There have been a number of injuries that occurred during the 2022 NBA playoffs. The list of players that have been injured and missed time includes Ja Morant, Khris Middleton and Devin Booker, among others.
Not even the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors were immune to the injury bug on their road to the NBA Finals. Robert Williams III and Marcus Smart have been in and out of the lineup for Boston, while Gary Payton II, Otto Porter Jr. and Andre Iguodala have missed time for the Dubs.
However, Sliver says that the number of games a player participates in has no correlation to the rising number of injuries. Silver does point to back-to-backs potentially playing a role in players getting hurt more.
"What we don’t see is increased numbers of injuries as the season goes on. It’s not as if because of fatigue over the course of a season, you see more injuries. We do see a connection between actual fatigue, for example, from back-to-backs or three in a row. We think that potentially can lead to more injuries."
There has also been a rumor of a midseason season tournament being a discussion point among league officials, per Adrian Wojnarowski. Silver told reporters that the league is not where it wants to be with the matter.
"We're not there yet," he said while explaining there are still ongoing talks with the competition committee, board of governors and players union.
While from a financial standpoint, the league would be best having a 82 game schedule, on the flip side, player heath is and should be of most importance. One thing is for sure, the NBA schedule that we've been used to seeing for quite some time is not set in stone.
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