An interesting article from Bickley on whether today's athletes work to hard: CLICK
I showed up at a recent Suns practice to get the viewpoint of General Manager Ryan McDonough, and found him with his head buried in a laptop. On the screen was a new study on how analytics can help prevent injuries in the NBA.
Clearly, this is a hot topic.
"It's definitely a concern for all of us," McDonough said. "Like a lot of teams, we are concerned that guys are working too much and breaking down due to non-contact injuries."
The NBA is also about to enter its annual red zone. When the playoffs arrive, athletes push their bodies even harder. Nobody loafs on defense. The spike in intensity and physicality guarantees that something will pop and a handful of key players will get hurt. It happens every postseason.
McDonough also knows the business. Games are content, and content generates television revenue. No matter how many guys get hurt, sports leagues will not shorten their regular seasons, thereby revving down their own engines of commerce.
As a result, the Suns are looking at alternatives.
"One of the things we've thought about doing is making guys go home and rest at certain points of the off-season," McDonough said. "We've thought about doing it right after the season ends, maybe take a few weeks there, and then again after the Summer League, when we'll encourage them to go home again and take a load off their bodies.
"In talking to Danny Ainge and players from other generations, they'll tell you there was a time when they didn't touch the ball for weeks or months a time. That doesn't happen anymore."
