Welpee wrote:Do we have any data that this is primarily a big man issue versus other size players? I would bet this is more of a perception thing versus anything rooted in actual data.
In modern professional sports, ALL OF THEM, the highest correlations to predicting future injury relate to
A) Previous history of injury
B) Age, in general
C) Age, as in distance from the nominal "decline" curve (i.e. the typical ages where a player begins his decline and when they tend to fall off of a cliff), factoring in positional value (i.e. a goalie is going to have much different issues in the NHL than a center)
Smaller factors will include
1) Genetic disposition ( i.e. JaVale McGee was the child of two pro athletes, which is why he's a uber athlete simply from a raw tool set standpoint, some of his push/pull will relate to his parents and their skill sets/tradeoffs/weaknesses)
2) Style of play ( Think Robert Griffin 3 or Derrick Rose, guys who play like they are headed into a car crash, versus like a Curtis Martin in his Jets timeline, who could shade many hits and reduce full contact, probably better than most NFL back in history)
3) Growth patterns. Many young players are still developing, both physically and mentally, so that changing physical structure can't operate as a "control" to try to assess and prevent injuries. I.E. why young pitchers have innings limits.
The vaunted Phoenix Suns medical staff were one of the first in prosports to do specific full detail medical evaluations and using real time monitoring and metrics. They'd measure how much one knee would bend more than the other. How much longer one finger was to another. Things like that. Something they did try to study was "surface area" I.E. Manute Bol simply has more back than a Muggsy Bogues, so the more you have of something, the more you have that can tweak the wrong way. Something like that is hard to quantify though.
From a baseline eyeball test, pivots and big men in the NBA are more injury prone. Once you equalize for age and previous injury history.
Dwayne Wade is more likely to get hurt than Karl Anthony Towns in real life. If they both started as draftees in the same class with no previous injury history, Towns would be more statistically likely to get hurt.
Long answer short - Knicks need more talent. This solves a lot of problems. More talent means jumping out to leads and holding leads where Zinger can get some bench time to recover. Until then, they need to jack up a ton of three point shots.
This is why "positionless" basketball is so critical. The Knicks don't have another big who can truly space the floor, so it forces Zinger into a mandatory situation. He must provide X every game, or the Knicks just won't have it and they need it.
Briggs is right, in that the Knicks should monitor Zinger's usage as he's still developing. He's wrong in that he never accounts for the actual context involved ( as usual...) What the Knicks need and most teams need in regards to their franchise player is to replicate his skill set entirely, IN PARTS. Across the entire roster. No one will give you 100 percent of Zinger alone, but one guy can give you rim protection, the other guy will give you the shot creation, the other guy will give you X or Y, etc, etc. They have no big who can space the floor. Going to be a bit of a problem.
Sometimes there is no roster fix or switch that will help you. Sometimes you just don't have the personnel you need. Briggs is looking short term. Fixing specific fit areas. Long term, just stockpile assets and talent. Hope it fits and works down the road. Do you think the Warriors planned all this out in advance? This is the part that Briggs can't understand or won't listen ( same thing to thing to him really), you don't and can't map out a rebuild. You have to do the best you can given the immediate time and place. You have to accept some margin of error and you have to apply the actual Mirror Test with personnel.
