timberwolves injury report

timberwolves injury report

The Impact of Injuries on the Timberwolves’ Performance

1. Introduction

The Minnesota Timberwolves are among the elite basketball teams in the NBA and have continually aimed to reach the top. In 1989, the Timberwolves became an official NBA team. They steadily improved in the regular season by posting more victories every year since the 1989-1990 season. They would eventually reach their regular season peak in 2003-04 by winning eight games over the course of the previous year. This portrayed the team’s improvement and dedication towards the ultimate goal…a playoff spot. Unfortunately, luck did not play a factor for the 2003-04 Timberwolves, suffering a key injury to their MVP player, Kevin Garnett, at the toughest part of the season. This opened up major insight for research on injuries in NBA teams and its effects on the team’s performance. This event sparked interest in the data used in the research paper “The Impact of Injuries on an NBA Team’s Performance.” This research paper was published in 2007 and displays the validity of the impact of injuries on the Timberwolves’ performance during the 2003-04 season. The data in this research paper was drawn from the 2003-2004 season of the Minnesota Timberwolves. This is a fully compiled dataset of all player injuries and individual game statistics for the Timberwolves during the 82-game regular season. All injury data was gathered from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, and games missed were further confirmed with the Athletic Training Staff. This data would further be used to develop an injury classification system. An injury classification system is a predetermined set of criteria used to determine the injury status of a player, developed by McKeon et al. in a 2006 article “The Influence of Ankle Injury on Dynamics of Subsequent Lower Extremity Joint Flexibility During Landing: A Two-Year Prospective Study.” This system determines if an injury is major or minor and is based on the amount of games missed and the impact of that injury on the player’s performance. Major injuries are deemed to have a significant impact on the player’s ability to perform on the court. Any injury that causes a player to miss 5 or more consecutive games or sustain reduced game performance following his return in the form of reduced minutes played or a prolonged period of poor statistics is a major and significant injury.

2. Importance of a Healthy Roster

The potential energy of a player and his potential to play at a certain ability level is a very important aspect when related to his injuries. Most importantly, the better the player, the more impact his injuries will have on the team’s performance. This was quite evident in the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons with Kendall Gill. Gill was starting to show his age and his ability to play at a level where his defense could create a very positive impact on the team. Unfortunately, hamstring and calf injuries would limit him to playing 68 games in the 2 seasons and would limit his ability to contribute. Now, the most effectual type of injury to a team is a season-long or a last season injury to a key player. A prime example would be the MVP season with Karl Malone in 1999-2000. This was a big year in which Malone and Stockton were making a final push to win an NBA championship. The injury to Malone on the last game of the season would cause a Creech in the team’s potential and the Achilles injury would further hobble Malone on the last year of his career in 2003-04. Now the Timberwolves are very accustomed to season-long injuries of key players that never seem to surface. The Malik Sealy case was a very tragic one in which Sealy was killed by a drunk driver in the summer of 2000. Although not an injury, the loss of Sealy would weigh heavy on the Timberwolves’ future. Now, the Terrell Brandon situation was a legit case of a season-long injury in which an MRI of Brandon’s left leg revealed a severe deterioration of the bones cartilage, which ended Brandon’s basketball career. This would prove disastrous to the Timberwolves who had just given Brandon a new contract in hopes that he would become the franchise point guard. His sudden retirement would leave a hole in the point guard position that plagued the wolves until the 2011 season. Brandon would be paid 11.3 million for his season-long injury in the 2003-04 season in which he never played a single game.

Maintaining a healthy roster is obviously quite important for any team that participates in competition. A team’s general and statistical performance will almost always improve when it has fewer injuries to key players. For example, a few injuries to key players on the Miami Heat in April caused a big slide in their playoff seed by the end of the season. In their 2004 season, the Timberwolves had five players play all 82 games. The team finished with a record of 58-24, their best ever season. Many Wolves fans were thinking that this would be the year that they would be able to bring the first NBA championship back to Minnesota. Hindered by various injuries to key players, it is said that the Timberwolves never reached full potential. This is now in the past of course, and it is said that even the best potential for injuries is no match for no potential at all.

3. Analysis of Current Injuries

The analysis of current injuries is valuable when trying to understand why the Minnesota Timberwolves went from an incredibly strong starting record of 7-4 to 29-53 for the rest of the season. Fans of any sports will often point to injuries as an excuse for a poor season record, but in general, they are not often proven to have consistently affected on-court performance of a team. A study conducted by four of the five authors on the effect of player injuries on NBA performance took the first steps to proving this with reference to individual players’ participation, but the study outlined in this research will provide a more detailed and predictive analysis in relation to specific types of player injuries. The use of injury classifications and a reflection of their impact on player games missed, as well as a statistical assessment of injury effects on player performance, may serve to both classify the injury types which were most damaging to the Timberwolves’ season and predict a range of potential results for the injury-riddled teams of the future. During the 2001-2002 NBA season, the Golden State Warriors’ GM Garry St. Jean coined the phrase “Fragrant Fouls” to describe the series of injuries suffered by his basketball team. These injuries would eventually result in the missed games of three of the Warriors’ best players and a late-season slump resulting in the loss of 12 of their final 15 games. The Warriors’ season demonstrates the need for a predictive model, showing that despite games prior to major injuries being a good indicator of team caliber, the late-season performance of injured teams can be drastically altered. Data compiled by the authors’ study found the Timberwolves very relevant to the Warriors’ example. The Timberwolves’ performance relative to the league gradually declined from the initial loss of Terrell Brandon in December and was below average at all stages in which they suffered additional major injuries (classed by games missed) to key players.

4. Consequences on Team Performance

In the first 20 games, the Timberwolves only had 6 wins and a 14-loss record. After that, the Timberwolves started to get injured (9 injuries in 21 games), and the team’s performance went down significantly. Before the Christmas break, the Wolves were able to show a little bit of winning, with 7 wins out of 14 games, and a few baby steps above .500 to create some hopes for better results. But after the break, the Timberwolves took a deep and painful slide that lasted until the end of the season. During the period from January 19th to March 31st, the Timberwolves only won 4 games and dropped a huge 27 games, finishing the regular season with 32 wins and 50 losses. In the end, the Timberwolves lost their last game in overtime by 7 points against Denver in front of a home crowd that would have taken them to the playoffs if it were a victory.

4.1 Team Performance and Results in the 2006/2007 Season

In this section, information from Timberwolves’ performance in the 2006/2007 season will be presented, along with injuries suffered by players. The information will discuss the impact of those injuries on team performance and results. The first part of this section will present the overall team performance with and without injuries and the season’s results. The second part will look separately at the most important players’ injuries and how that affected the team. A step back in the NBA season is hard to overcome, and this research will give the best picture of what kind of effects injuries can have on a team that was a playoff contender for the entire season.

5. Strategies to Minimize Injuries

One statistical analysis found no link between injury rates and extent of play of the athletes in the study. This same article simply suggests that basketball players are at greater injury risk during games compared to practices. If creating a rule, the NBA could require teams to turn it down a notch at their practices to minimize the possibility of injury. Focusing on the concept of rest, studies have shown that adequate sleep helps the body recover and repair itself, reducing the risks of overuse injuries. Combining these two concepts, the Timberwolves could have players who play heavy minutes during games make occasional practices optional and encourage them to rest, providing that they’ll show up on game day ready to play. Also, setting a standard of at least 8 hours of sleep a night could minimize the risk of injury for all players.

In a 2000 article, The Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons reported that “a professional basketball player has a 10% chance of sustaining a significant knee ligament injury during his career, and a 25% chance of sustaining a major ankle sprain.” Knee and ankle injuries are two of the most common (and severe) injuries that occur in basketball. Various studies across all sports have shown neuromuscular training to be very effective in prevention of knee and ankle injuries. After one of the most recent neuromuscular training programs was implemented, there was a 72% reduction in ACL injuries and a 59% reduction in acute non-contact ankle sprains for female athletes in high-risk sports. These statistics and the success of other neuromuscular training programs demonstrate the effectiveness of this type of training and provide a good reason for the Timberwolves to consider implementation of one of these programs.