My Top 8 NBA Injury Issues That Changed the League
Folks who spend copious amounts of time on Twitter then complain that it’s “the Hellsite” are the worst. Apologies for using a cliche, but the medium gives back what the user puts in.
It can be a great professional resource, both for establishing connections and inspiring content ideas. Today, I must credit Twitter for the latter. The below tweet sparked this Friday’s list topic.
Injuries have an unfortunate, prominent place in the sports ecosystem. In basketball, with the smallest rosters and fewest in-game participants of the major team sports, injuries arguably impact hoops most profoundly.
For the sake of this exercise, I am excluding single-season injuries like Amare Stoudemire’s in 2006 and instead focused on recurring issues. I also excluded deaths, despite the passing of Len Bias, Reggie Lewis and Drazen Petrovic all having effects on the NBA landscape.
As always, the following is subjective (albeit with supporting evidence to justify my position). Your own suggestions or contention is welcomed.
Honorable Mention: Salim Stoudamire
Salim Stoudamire remains one of the single greatest 3-point shooters I have ever seen. In 2004-05, while J.J. Redick (who is still in the NBA today) was celebrated as a transformative shooter, Salim was doing this:
As a college shooter, I rank Stoudamire alongside Jimmer Fredette, Buddy Hield and Steph Curry. Salim was more adept at creating his shot than Jimmer, instead playing a brand of ball more comparable to Steph — before Steph.
Now, that isn’t to suggest without the hip injury that ended his NBA run after three, injury-shortened seasons Salim would have had a career akin to Curry’s. Steph is the greatest shooter in history and transformed the NBA with his style.
As the game evolved shortly after Stoudamire’s career ended, however, he would have been a fit for any number of rosters and could have been akin to Hield.
8. Danny Manning
March Madness may not have a more important figure than Danny Manning. His stellar performance in 1988 carried Kansas to its first national championship since the 1950s and launched him into the NBA draft with considerable fanfare.
Manning was ahead of the curve, a center-sized player with the dexterity and skill set of a wing. Drafted seven years before Kevin Garnett, Manning had the potential to be that same type of revolutionary player KG became.
Being drafted in the abysmal Clippers organization during Donald Sterling’s reign of terror may have capped the impact a full-strength Manning could have had, but a trade to a contender as Manning was hitting his peak would have been a blockbuster.
Manning played a lengthy career, even participating in a full 82 games in 2000-01. But as he was reaching his full potential in the mid-1990s and making All-Star teams, he joined the contending Phoenix Suns only to have injury again slow him down.
7 and 6. Greg Oden and Brandon Roy
Greg Oden’s selection at No. 1 ahead of Kevin Durant in the 2007 NBA Draft remains one of the most contentious in the event’s history — and arguably the most debated since Portland passed on another Hall of Fame wing, Michael Jordan, for an injury-plagued center, Sam Bowie.
I still argue today that at the time, Portland made the right choice with Oden. He was a monster at Ohio State despite missing time, and his hand injury with the Buckeyes was not the type to be career-altering. He flipped a switch during Ohio State’s run to the 2007 National Championship Game, culminating in a 25-point, 12-rebound, four-block performance in the finale.
Kevin Durant, meanwhile, bowed out in the 2nd Round. What’s more, Durant left Texas a rail-thin power forward; credit those in the Seattle/OKC organization who had the foresight to move him to a 2/3, a rarity for a player of his height.
In contrast, Oden came into the NBA with the body type and skill set for his position already established — and at a time when elite centers were still an invaluable commodity. Oden was drafted just two years after Shaq had an MVP-caliber season with the Heat, immediately following Tim Duncan leading San Antonio to its fourth championship (yes, TD was officially a power forward, but you get the idea), and two years prior to Dwight Howard establishing himself as one of the top 3 players in the NBA at the time.
Had Oden not sustained a serious knee injury before ever playing a pro game, I contend he could have been right alongside Howard on that final wave of star centers. And with an ahead-of-his-time 3-point shooter Brandon Roy on the wing, Portland would have had a championship-caliber combination.
Roy became an All-Star and explosive scorer by the late 2000s, just as the NBA was in a window of new challengers emerging in the title picture. Had Roy not been forced into early retirement with a degenerative knee issue, his star would have only continued to rise and perhaps peaked around the time a vulnerable Lakers team repeated and aging Mavericks bunch won the Finals.
5. Penny Hardaway
I was getting into basketball right around the time Penny Hardaway became a star at Memphis State and just ahead of his move to the NBA. Magic Johnson had just retired, and the landscape of point guards included players like Kevin Johnson, John Stockton, Rod Strickland who went around 6-foot. Someone like 6-foot-4 Gary Payton was seen as a big 1-guard. Hardaway, however, was poised to take up Magic’ mantle.
The trade from Golden State for Chris Webber that paired Penny with Shaq seemed destined to forge a new dynasty. Shaq’s decision to move to Los Angeles in 1996, shortly after Michael Jordan’s return restored the Bulls as basketball’s preeminent franchise, put the kibosh on Orlando’s dominant designs.
Just as detrimental to the Magic’s outlook for the next decade, however, was the injury Penny sustained in 1996 that lingered for his career.
Hardaway famously gutted through an outstanding playoff in ‘96 before joining Dream Team III at the Atlanta Olympics.
In the ensuing ‘96-’97 campaign, Penny played fewer than 77 games for the first time in his career. A year later, he suited up for just 19 games.
Hardaway played for another decade, but never reached the level of transformative superstar to which he was headed in 1996. He adopted the role of wily veteran 2-guard effectively enough, but could have been one of the greatest point guards ever if he hadn’t been derailed.
4. Grant Hill
It’s hard to describe just how much of a cultural phenomenon Grant Hill was almost immediately into his NBA career. Some context for generations that have grown up with Duke hate as a baked-in facet of basketball culture: Hill was universally beloved despite being a Dukie.
Loving Hill was easy, though. A long line of Next Jordans have come into the NBA throughout the first half of the ‘90s, but Hill was the first to live up to the billing. He was a prolific scorer who put up more than 20 points per game through his first four seasons, and did so with the flair of ‘80s MJ.
Coupled with the same sort of Genuine Good Guy personality as David Robinson, Grant Hill was the perfect face for the NBA heading into a new millennium.
But coming off a 2000 season in which he averaged a hair under 26 points per game as he entered what should have been his prime. Over the next few years, however, injuries piled up — including a freak ankle fracture.
I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to suggest had Hill remained healthy, he would have reached a level of stardom rivaling that of Kobe Bryant.
Personal aside: I owned a red Grant Hill Pistons jersey, a Hill Dream Team III jersey, and even one of those putrid teal Pistons jerseys. I even rocked a pair of Grant Hill Filas.
3. Bill Walton
With the exception of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton is the most dominant college basketball player of all-time. When the Trail Blazers drafted Walton in 1974, and Kareem joined the Lakers the following year, a rivalry for West Coast (and NBA) supremacy could have been imminent.
Kareem’s role in Airplane even alluded to the two former Bruins locking up.
When Airplane was filmed in 1979, the Blazers were two years removed from Walton leading them to their first (and still only) NBA championship. In ‘77, Walton averaged a shade below 19 points per game, but led the league in rebounding and blocked shots. He was still very young, so once his scoring touch caught up to his already transcended defense and board work, Walton was going to be legendary.
But in 1978, Walton sustained a foot injury that sidelined him for the entire season. The complications associated with the injury led eventually to his being moved to the dumpster fire San Diego organization (TEASER: This newsletter will explore the San Diego Clippers in-depth in the not-distant future).
Walton’s lingering health problems prevented him from ever regaining the stardom of his third and fourth NBA seasons, denying Portland a potential string of championships and contributing to the factors that sent the Clippers north to Los Angeles.
2. Arvydas Sabonis
Perhaps more than any other What If in NBA history, the prospect of prime Arvydas Sabonis coming stateside from the Soviet Union intrigues me the most. Much of it is because of the mystery surrounding Sabonis and the cultural reflection of Reagan-era Cold War politics.
My dad coached basketball for almost four decades, and one of his favorite players ever is David Robinson. After seeing Sabonis shred The Admiral in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Papa Kensing told me the big Lithuanian looked like the best center he had seen since Kareem.
In 1992, my family took in a refugee of the Yugoslavian civil war. A Euro hoophead, the Bosnian teen who lived with us raved about Sabonis. These accounts stuck with me since.
YouTube has since provided limited insight into what the NBA might have missed out on due to political posturing. The comparison that immediately springs to mind: Nikola Jokic, a full three decades before The Joker took the NBA by storm.
Even after enduring multiple injuries and considerable wear on his knees, Sabonis came to the NBA in the latter half of the ‘90s with a revolutionary style that more closely resembled a point guard than a massive, 7-foot-3 center.
1. Ralph Sampson
Chuck Klosterman’s book Eating The Dinosaur includes an essay that draws a parallel between Britney Spears and Ralph Sampson. Depending on your opinion of Klosterman’s polarizing writing style, the preceding sentence might elicit an eye roll, but the comparison clicked for me as someone who didn’t witness Sampson’s peak.
I knew Sampson as a college legend from his time at Virginia, but magazines like SLAM and later internet columns gave me the impression Sampson was an NBA bust. Later research proves to me that not only is that a misrepresentation, but a flat-out distortion of where he was going before injuries mounted.
Klosterman’s Britney comparison is worth revisiting in 2021 with the release of Framing Britney Spears, a documentary that captures our culture’s celebrity obsession and its warping of fundamental realities. Britney Spears was covered and discussed in a way that placed undue expectations on her, which is the crux of Klosterman’s argument.
It was after reading Eating the Dinosaur that I became intrigued with Ralph Sampson and started to dig into his career. What I concluded is that, without the injuries that began sidetracking him in 1986, Sampson’s presence puts a hard cap on the expansion of Michael Jordan’s legacy.
That’s not to say Ralph Sampson was destined to be the star who carried the NBA in the same way as MJ; hardly. But Sampson, through his first 3 1/2 seasons, was an immediate star. He was a 7-foot-4 big man with the skills of a much smaller and quicker player, a unicorn well before the term was used in basketball.
What’s more, Sampson had room to grow — and he was set to grow alongside one of the greatest players in NBA history, Hakeem Olajuwon.
Once the 1980s gave way to the ‘90s, proto-hot takers questioned Jordan’s legitimacy because he was yet to win a championship. It’s unfair, but the whole RINGS!~!11! thing chuckleheads attach to stars of today like LeBron once plagued MJ, too. And if Jordan’s six rings were instead three or four, maybe even fewer, it shifts the nature of the discussion.
A healthy pairing of Ralph Sampson and Hakeem might well have prevented the first Bulls dynasty from happening. The duo led the Rockets to the Finals once in 1986, and by 1991 as Hakeem was developing into the transcendent star as which he’s remembered, they might have taken over the league.
Had the Rockets ascended to the position the early ‘90s Bulls took over, it completes shifts the paradigm of the NBA for a generation.