On Wednesday—the ninth day of the 173-day regular season—69 players were ruled out for the league’s 12-game slate due to injury. Five players are already ruled out for the three upcoming games Thursday night. Just about every team has been bit by the injury bug, and in many cases, it’s been the league’s stars that have found themselves on the injury report.

After his electric start to the season, it was announced Tuesday that Anthony Edwards will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right knee and will be out until January, at least. Tyrese Haliburton’s NBA comeback is paused for at least two weeks due to a left hamstring strain, the same injury that caused him to miss the final two games of the 2024 Eastern Conference finals. And it doesn’t stop there. Kawhi Leonard, out for a few weeks, left knee swelling. Paolo Banchero, out four to six weeks, ankle sprain. Jalen Williams, likely out for the year, fractured fibula and dislocated ankle. Jaren Jackson Jr., out six to eight weeks, MCL tear. 

And those are just the long-term injuries! Luka Dončić sat Tuesday night due to back tightness. Chet Holmgren missed his second consecutive game with right knee patellar tendinitis. 

This is not what anyone wants—the league, the players, the fans. It’s not good for a game built on its stars. In order to solve its injury problem, the NBA must examine the cause of it.

Why the NBA has an injury problem

Dr. Nirav Pandya, an orthopedic surgeon at UCSF who has done extensive research on injury risk factors for NBA players, has a few theories.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Dr. Pandya noted a slight uptick in injuries early in a season is common across professional sports leagues like the NBA, NFL and NHL as players adjust to regularly playing at full speed once again. But the vast number of injuries to NBA stars early this season is on another level. 

“We're seeing a lot of soft tissue injuries, which is really reflective that the game of basketball is more explosive [these days],” Dr. Pandya told SI. “There's more movement. You’ve got bigger people doing things that athletes couldn't do 15, 20 years ago. So I think in general, the game has evolved to where you're stressing your hamstrings, you're stressing your Achilles, you're stressing the knee joints.”

The 1984 NBA Finals are renowned as one of the greatest championship series in league history. It was the height of the Lakers-Celtics rivalry. Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird. But watch the highlights, and there’s a different game being played than we see on a night-to-night basis in today’s NBA. The pace of NBA games in the 1980s was similar, yes, but there’s so much more explosive movement in the game today. Players in the 1980s were nowhere near as athletic. The game back then—or even as recent as 15 or 20 years ago—was physical, of course, but in a much different way. It was more of a bruising game than the high-flying showcase of speed and athleticism we watch today. 

In addition, the distance players cover during games is significantly up from just 10 or 15 years ago. In 2013-14—the first year with available tracking data—the Spurs led the league with 1,456.8 miles covered by their players that season. Through four games this year, the Bucks are on pace to cover 1,533.4 miles. Compared to 2013-14—the rookie season for players like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Rudy Gobert—that’s equivalent to an extra four games on players’ legs.

Back-to-back games are less common today than they have been in the past, but Dr. Pandya believes the league hasn’t gone far enough to combat how the game has changed. Those 1983-84 Celtics had 21 back-to-back games in the regular season. Boston’s 2007-08 championship squad had 18. This year, the Celtics have a league-high 16. But those 16 back-to-back sets still mean the 2026–27 Celtics are playing 20% of their regular-season games on no rest. 

“This game is more explosive and high-paced [than in the past], and the NBA schedule hasn't adapted at all,” Dr. Pandya said. “Everyone on the court is just moving a lot more quickly and playing these big minutes. Even though players are playing 30 minutes a game, what they're doing in that 30 minutes is extremely intensive compared to 30 minutes in years past.”

Over the years, the NBA has defended its 82-game schedule and tried to combat teams resting their stars. In 2023, the league established a rule that players must play at least 65 games in a season to be eligible for awards, which can affect the contract thresholds they are eligible to sign. 

In 2024, a 57-page report sent by the NBA to all 30 teams concluded there was no link between player rest and injury prevention. But Dr. Christina Mack of IQVIA Injury Surveillance & Analytics, who conducted the study, warned against drawing definitive conclusions. "We're not saying [load management is] better or worse," she said.

It’s not just the demanding NBA schedule and maddening pace the game is played at that is contributing to the rise of injuries, however. It’s also the way that many of today’s NBA stars grew up playing the game. The rise of AAU basketball this century has encouraged young athletes to specialize in their best sport and play basketball all year round from an early age instead of competing in other sports that work different muscles and joints. 

“When you look at things like Achilles tears and these hamstring injuries, they're happening in younger and younger players,” Dr. Pandya said. “They used to be injuries that happened at the end of careers. But now you're getting these big, devastating, soft tissue injuries at younger ages, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that a 20-year-old's body now in the NBA has much more mileage on it than a 20-year-old NBA player's body 30 years ago.”

How to solve the NBA’s injury problem

If Dr. Pandya was NBA commissioner for a day, he’d either shorten the schedule from 82 regular-season games or extend the league calendar for those 82 games to build in more scheduled rest.

“I think the easiest thing is to incorporate in the rest and eliminate the back-to-backs,” Dr. Pandya said. “It’s the most tangible way to decrease the load on these players. You're not going to be able to tell people to change minutes in the playoffs. You're not going to change the game from being more explosive. But what can you do to build in rest? That’s the best way. And I think what then happens from a business standpoint for the NBA is you don't have Steph Curry sitting out the second night of a back-to-back. That game is 48 hours later. Then the fans can see him. Does that mean the season starts a little bit earlier and ends later? Maybe, but then there's more stars out there, which probably means more money for the NBA.”

Another popular theory to limit injuries is shortening games to 40 or 44 minutes from the NBA’s standard 48-minute game. As recently as last year, commissioner Adam Silver said he likes the idea of shortening games to FIBA’s 40-minute contests (although he cited modern television habits as his reasoning why, not injury prevention).

While shortening games could help limit injuries, in Dr. Pandya’s opinion, it wouldn’t have the same effect as allowing players more built-in rest in the schedule. Plus, a 40-minute game probably means a team’s stars would play a similar number of minutes as they do now, and the eight fewer minutes would simply decrease opportunities for role players.

“I think that can have a little bit of an impact,” Dr. Pandya said of shortening games. “ … [But] I think it is probably more powerful to give athletes that full 24- to 48-hour rest as opposed to just playing a little bit less.” 

What also can have an impact in the long-term is encouraging young players to play multiple sports. Dr. Pandya has conducted multiple studies (here and here) that have found NBA players who have a background playing multiple high school sports are less likely to get injured and, in general, have more success at the professional level. 

“I think a lot of these kids get caught up on, you know, at age 8, 9 or 10, it's like, ‘I'm just gonna play AAU basketball all year round.’ So you're pounding your body the same way again and again and again. So, absolutely, play basketball. But then, you know, maybe you play baseball, run track, do something else in the offseason so you're not pounding your body in the same way.”

NBA players are only going to get bigger, taller and more athletic from here. The game is not going to slow down. Injuries will continue to be a part of basketball. But the league does have a chance to do something about it so the stars of the game can stay on the court.

PODCAST 🎧: Listen to SI’s NBA podcast, Open Floor, below or on Apple and . Watch the show on SI’s YouTube channel.