At an indoor basketball court in Broomfield on Saturday morning, the chatter quickly turned to the NBA Finals. And that talk quickly settled on one question.
“So without Kyrie Irving the Cavaliers are done, right?”
The short answer is probably.
The longer answer starts with, “But you can’t really count out any team that has LeBron James.”
And so on.
As big a blow to Cleveland’s title hopes as Irving’s season-ending broken kneecap is, it could have bigger consequences for the record-setting television audience that watched Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night.
If fans believe the best-of-seven series is now done-and-dusted, will they still tune in?
This is where NBA commissioner Adam Silver comes in.
The injuries that marred the playoffs have now infiltrated the Finals. And for a league that needs its stars, that revolves around its stars, this simply will not do.
To be fair, Silver’s first concern is the well-being of his league’s players over any damage their absence does to TV ratings. But in both cases the most perplexing question remains the same.
What can anyone really do to prevent it?
Silver addressed the issue with USA Today last week.
“Whether or not there’s more we can do to prevent injuries is something we’re very focused on,” Silver said. “It’s always been part of the game — injuries happen, and they happen to high-profile players, they happen to guys who aren’t so high profile. Whether there’s better training practices, whether through better analytics, we can get a sense of what precise movements lead to injuries, whether it’s a function of the schedule are all things that we’re (looking at).”
Complicating matters is that the injuries aren’t focused in one area; they’re all over the place — Irving’s kneecap, Kevin Love’s dislocated shoulder, DeMarre Carroll’s sprained knee, John Wall’s five nondisplaced hand fractures, Wesley Matthews’ torn Achilles tendon, Mike Conley’s plantar fasciitis and facial fractures.
And so on.
They have come with no contact and with harsh contact. This is as elusive a moving target as there is, and yet as important an issue as any the league must solve.
“Like I said, it’s not a new issue, but from a league standpoint things we can do is take the league resources by bringing together data from all 30 teams and not making it a solitary issue for any team or any given player,” Silver told USA Today. “And trying to figure out the optimal amount of training players should be doing. I mean frankly, maybe they’re working too hard. I mean, talk to a guy like (NBA president of basketball operations) Rod Thorn, who has been with the league 50 years, and he’ll tell you that in his day (players) took more time off in the summer. Maybe that’s what’s necessary.”
Or maybe the random nature of it all makes it just terrible coincidence this season.
Who knows?
Two weeks ago, this space contained a column that acknowledged the injury bug while noting the NBA had been able to navigate those waters without catastrophic damage to the overall quality of the playoffs. That is no longer the case.
At least understanding what could be happening, if there is science that can help, is a necessary start.
Because the last thing the NBA needs are games decided — or even perceived to be decided — when key players are injured and unable to finish.
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey @denverpost.com or dempseypost
