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For as long as we've played this game, there has been speculation and conspiracy over certain franchises being 'cursed' when it comes to injuries. We've seen teams, for what ever reason, repeatedly suffer from the injury bug. That concept caught my interest and over the last few weeks, I've compiled data to determine if this is actually the case or was it just that, a conspiracy.
I've pulled the injuries from each of the last five seasons here at BSL ('36-'40) to attempt to find a trend or reasoning behind increased injuries for teams. I also simply wanted to see if there were teams that are 'cursed' and suffer from more injuries than other. Through this, I looked at 308 different players over that five year span. I've looked at 145 different team pages a long the way. Here is what I found out.
Before we get into the findings, we must go over a bit of house cleaning. To begin with, some of these numbers are not 100-percent accurate. This is mainly due to punishments from hard cap and luxury tax. I tried my best to cycle through the Discord and the forums to accurately remove those players who suffered any form of punishment over the past five years. I also only used players who played at least 25 minutes-per-game in a respective season. This was simply due to the mass volume of players I was going through and with depth chart changes, it would have been nearly impossible to accurately find a number. Also, I feel that those playing over 25 minutes-per-game are the most important parts of any roster, therefore their injuries were much more impactful to their respective teams. Additionally, players that were traded mid-season don't tell the full story for a team as I used the historic indexs for my research and the players reflect the team they finished the season on. The hopes is to add more seasons down the road when time allows to get a clearer picture but I believe a five season sample size is a great place to start.
So simply, I took players with over 25 minutes-per-game, found out how many games they missed, totaled that number through five seasons and divided that by how many players have reached the 25 minutes-per-game threshold for each roster over the last five seasons.
The Orlando Magic are the most injured team by far in BSL. Players have missed 53 more games over the last seasons than the next closest team (the Utah Jazz.) With that, on average, players playing more than 25 minutes-per-game are missing 8.9 games per season. They had a total of 29 players reach the minutes threshold over the last five years as well. Over the past five seasons, their most important players have missed 62 games in 2040, 46 games in 2039, 43 games in 2038, 57 games in 2037 and 51 games in 2036. Absolute insane numbers there. Now, over than same time span, the team has gone 229-181, playing them as one of the best teams in BSL over the past five seasons. Is there something to better teams receiving more injuries than others? I guess we'll figure that out as we go. However, even if that is to be the case, these injuries numbers are insane.
The Utah Jazz come in next on the list, seeing 206 total days missed among 26 players. What makes the Utah Jazz's case more interesting than others is that they are second on this list with 206 total injuries and an average of 7.9 games-missed-per-season for players seeing over 25 minutes-per-game, but they did that with just 26 eligible players, that's tied for the fewest among all 29 teams on this list. Over the past five seasons, the Jazz players have missed 63 gams in 2040, 43 games in 2039, 19 games in 2038, 42 games in 2037 and 39 games in 2036. Now, I will say, Swaggy tinkers with his lineups more than most and has seen quality players miss games due to this, so these numbers may not be 100-percent accurate but again, overall, they're super high. The Jazz have also been a .500 team over the last five seasons. If quality is the standard for injuries, why would a .500 team be the second most injured team?
The Indiana Pacers roll in third on the list, seeing 205 total injuries from 29 different players. That places them on average of players missing 7.1 games-per-season. The Pacers had two spike seasons (71 games in 2037 and 52 games in 2040) to really push their numbers in one direction. They also saw missed games of 17 in 2039, 40 in 2038 and 25 in 2036. The Pacers have had the best winning percentage of the three teams we've touched on so far at 57-percent over the past five seasons. I guess we continue on with at least .500 teams seeing the most injuries.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are next on the list, tying the Jazz at 206 games missed for the second missed overall games through the last five seasons. However, the Cavaliers have used 32 different players over that time span, putting them second overall in terms of players used in BSL. Like the Pacers, the Cavaliers had two spike seasons that really put their numbers in one direction (62 games in 2039 and 74 games in 2038.) Additionally, players missed 31 games in 2040, 27 games in 2037 and just 12 games in 2036. Without full consistency over the last five seasons. I'm unsure if I'm ready to deem the Cavaliers a 'cursed' franchise but they did have two of the worst seasons in the league over that time span (2039 & 2038.) The Cavaliers are also the first sub .500 team over the past five seasons to appear on this list with a win percentage of 42-percent.
Rounding out the top five is the New York Knicks who have seen 173 games lost to injury from 28 different players. That puts the Knicks at an average of 6.2 games last per season to injury. When it comes to the Knicks, 2039 was an outlier with just 13 games lost to injury as the rest of the time span saw 37 games missed in 2040, 39 missed in 2038, 44 missed in 2037 and 40 missed in 2036. Like the Cavaliers, the Knicks come in with a sub .500 winning percentage over the past five seasons as well. Heck, they lost 63 games in 2038 but saw 39 games lost to injury and lost 54 games in 2037 but saw 44 games missed to injury. This one really throws a wrench in anyone's belief that better teams see more injuries.
The Dallas Mavericks are the final team to see an average over six games-missed-per-season (6.1) over the past five seasons. They saw a total of 182 games missed by 30 different players. They saw missed games of 46 in 2040, 21 in 2039, 26 in 2038, 55 in 2037 and 34 in 2036. The Mavericks have had the best win percentage of any team over the past five seasons at this point at 64.7-percent as well.
Rounding out the top ten we have the Denver Nuggets with 162 missed games over 29 players for an average of 5.6. The Nuggets had a winning percentage of just 43.3-percent. The Los Angeles Lakers are next with 137 games missed with 26 players for an average of 5.3. The Lakers numbers may be the most skewed since they had multiple hard cap and/or luxury tax violations over that time. The Lakers had a winning percentage of 43.2-percent over the last five seasons. The Memphis Grizzlies come in ninth with 140 games missed with 27 players for an average of 5.2 games missed. The Grizzlies are also an interesting one as their 2039 seasons has flawless, as players playing over 25 minutes-per-game did not miss a single game. That was the only team of any of the last five seasons to do that. However, they did see some big numbers in 2037 with 50 games and 43 games in 2038. The Grizzlies had a 46.8-percent winning percentage over the past five seasons. The Brooklyn Nets round out the top ten as they saw 156 missed games with 31 players for an average of five-games-missed. The Nets have also had just a 33.7-percent winning percentage over the last five seasons and are top ten in terms of injury.
Here is the winning percentage per team over the last five years for the teams that find themselves in the middle.
- 11. Miami Heat (37.3%)
- 12. Portland Trailblazers (49%)
- 13. Philadelphia 76ers (43.2%)
- 14. Detroit Pistons (45.1%)
- 15. Minnesota Timberwolves (74.4%)
- 16. Sacramento Kings (48.8%)
- 17. San Antonio Spurs (42%)
- 18. Phoenix Suns (45.1%)
- 19. Houston Rockets (57.8%)
- 20. Boston Celtics (63.4%)
- 21. Charlotte Hornets (39.4%)
- 22. Milwaukee Bucks (62%)
- 23. Atlanta Hawks (53.4%)
- 24. Washington Wizards (52%)
Now, for the teams with the least amount of injuries over the past five seasons. The Oklahoma City Thunder have seen the fewest number of injuries over the past five seasons. They saw a total of just 65 injuries from 29 different players for an average of just 2.2 missed-games-per-season. The most days missed the Thunder have seen was just 19 games in 2038. The Thunder also had a winning percentage of 56.8-percent and if we throw out the 2040 season where they returned to tanking, they had a win percentage of 63.1-percent from 2036-2039.
The Toronto Raptors have seen the second fewest injuries over the past five seasons. They saw just 68 injuries from 27 different players for an average of 2.5 games missed per season. This past season (2040) really skewed their numbers with 40 total games missed. Beyond that, between 2036-2039, the most games missed was six. Yes, just six. Now, the Raptors have had a winning percentage of just 36.8-percent over that time frame.
The Chicago Bulls have seen the third fewest injuries over the past five years. They've seen a total of 77 games missed from 30 different players for an average of 2.6 games missed per season. The most injuries they've seen in a season was 29 missed games in 2037. Beyond that, they've seen three missed games in 2040, six in 2038 and 18 in 2037. They also appeared in two finals over that time span and have a winning percentage of 51-percent.
The Golden State Warriors have seen the fourth fewest injuries over the past five seasons. They have seen a total of 94 injuries from 31 different players for an average missed games of three. This past season (2040) too has skewed their stats. They saw 34 missed games in 2040, well over the rest of the seasons as they saw 26 in 2039, 11 in 2038, six in 2037 and 17 in 2036. The Warriors too had one of the better winning percentages over the past five seasons at 58.3-percent.
The last team I'll talk about here is the Los Angeles Clippers who have seen the fifth fewest injuries over the past five seasons. The Clippers have seen a total of 81 games missed from just 26 different players for an average missed games of 3.1. As the trend continues, 2040 was their biggest season in terms of missed games by far. They saw 50 missed games in 2040 as they saw just 11 in 2039, three in 2038, five in 2037 and ten in 2036. They had a winning percentage of 54-percent as well.
As previously mentioned, I hope to add more seasons to this down the road and pull in a greater sample size of everything to better pin down my findings.
As for my findings, there is no clear picture. There is no correlation between talent in terms of injuries. There may just be cursed teams.
I also have collected the injury history for each of the 308 players I used for this article. I will release an article soon with that information.
I've pulled the injuries from each of the last five seasons here at BSL ('36-'40) to attempt to find a trend or reasoning behind increased injuries for teams. I also simply wanted to see if there were teams that are 'cursed' and suffer from more injuries than other. Through this, I looked at 308 different players over that five year span. I've looked at 145 different team pages a long the way. Here is what I found out.
Before we get into the findings, we must go over a bit of house cleaning. To begin with, some of these numbers are not 100-percent accurate. This is mainly due to punishments from hard cap and luxury tax. I tried my best to cycle through the Discord and the forums to accurately remove those players who suffered any form of punishment over the past five years. I also only used players who played at least 25 minutes-per-game in a respective season. This was simply due to the mass volume of players I was going through and with depth chart changes, it would have been nearly impossible to accurately find a number. Also, I feel that those playing over 25 minutes-per-game are the most important parts of any roster, therefore their injuries were much more impactful to their respective teams. Additionally, players that were traded mid-season don't tell the full story for a team as I used the historic indexs for my research and the players reflect the team they finished the season on. The hopes is to add more seasons down the road when time allows to get a clearer picture but I believe a five season sample size is a great place to start.
So simply, I took players with over 25 minutes-per-game, found out how many games they missed, totaled that number through five seasons and divided that by how many players have reached the 25 minutes-per-game threshold for each roster over the last five seasons.
The Utah Jazz come in next on the list, seeing 206 total days missed among 26 players. What makes the Utah Jazz's case more interesting than others is that they are second on this list with 206 total injuries and an average of 7.9 games-missed-per-season for players seeing over 25 minutes-per-game, but they did that with just 26 eligible players, that's tied for the fewest among all 29 teams on this list. Over the past five seasons, the Jazz players have missed 63 gams in 2040, 43 games in 2039, 19 games in 2038, 42 games in 2037 and 39 games in 2036. Now, I will say, Swaggy tinkers with his lineups more than most and has seen quality players miss games due to this, so these numbers may not be 100-percent accurate but again, overall, they're super high. The Jazz have also been a .500 team over the last five seasons. If quality is the standard for injuries, why would a .500 team be the second most injured team?
The Indiana Pacers roll in third on the list, seeing 205 total injuries from 29 different players. That places them on average of players missing 7.1 games-per-season. The Pacers had two spike seasons (71 games in 2037 and 52 games in 2040) to really push their numbers in one direction. They also saw missed games of 17 in 2039, 40 in 2038 and 25 in 2036. The Pacers have had the best winning percentage of the three teams we've touched on so far at 57-percent over the past five seasons. I guess we continue on with at least .500 teams seeing the most injuries.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are next on the list, tying the Jazz at 206 games missed for the second missed overall games through the last five seasons. However, the Cavaliers have used 32 different players over that time span, putting them second overall in terms of players used in BSL. Like the Pacers, the Cavaliers had two spike seasons that really put their numbers in one direction (62 games in 2039 and 74 games in 2038.) Additionally, players missed 31 games in 2040, 27 games in 2037 and just 12 games in 2036. Without full consistency over the last five seasons. I'm unsure if I'm ready to deem the Cavaliers a 'cursed' franchise but they did have two of the worst seasons in the league over that time span (2039 & 2038.) The Cavaliers are also the first sub .500 team over the past five seasons to appear on this list with a win percentage of 42-percent.
Rounding out the top five is the New York Knicks who have seen 173 games lost to injury from 28 different players. That puts the Knicks at an average of 6.2 games last per season to injury. When it comes to the Knicks, 2039 was an outlier with just 13 games lost to injury as the rest of the time span saw 37 games missed in 2040, 39 missed in 2038, 44 missed in 2037 and 40 missed in 2036. Like the Cavaliers, the Knicks come in with a sub .500 winning percentage over the past five seasons as well. Heck, they lost 63 games in 2038 but saw 39 games lost to injury and lost 54 games in 2037 but saw 44 games missed to injury. This one really throws a wrench in anyone's belief that better teams see more injuries.
The Dallas Mavericks are the final team to see an average over six games-missed-per-season (6.1) over the past five seasons. They saw a total of 182 games missed by 30 different players. They saw missed games of 46 in 2040, 21 in 2039, 26 in 2038, 55 in 2037 and 34 in 2036. The Mavericks have had the best win percentage of any team over the past five seasons at this point at 64.7-percent as well.
Rounding out the top ten we have the Denver Nuggets with 162 missed games over 29 players for an average of 5.6. The Nuggets had a winning percentage of just 43.3-percent. The Los Angeles Lakers are next with 137 games missed with 26 players for an average of 5.3. The Lakers numbers may be the most skewed since they had multiple hard cap and/or luxury tax violations over that time. The Lakers had a winning percentage of 43.2-percent over the last five seasons. The Memphis Grizzlies come in ninth with 140 games missed with 27 players for an average of 5.2 games missed. The Grizzlies are also an interesting one as their 2039 seasons has flawless, as players playing over 25 minutes-per-game did not miss a single game. That was the only team of any of the last five seasons to do that. However, they did see some big numbers in 2037 with 50 games and 43 games in 2038. The Grizzlies had a 46.8-percent winning percentage over the past five seasons. The Brooklyn Nets round out the top ten as they saw 156 missed games with 31 players for an average of five-games-missed. The Nets have also had just a 33.7-percent winning percentage over the last five seasons and are top ten in terms of injury.
Here is the winning percentage per team over the last five years for the teams that find themselves in the middle.
- 11. Miami Heat (37.3%)
- 12. Portland Trailblazers (49%)
- 13. Philadelphia 76ers (43.2%)
- 14. Detroit Pistons (45.1%)
- 15. Minnesota Timberwolves (74.4%)
- 16. Sacramento Kings (48.8%)
- 17. San Antonio Spurs (42%)
- 18. Phoenix Suns (45.1%)
- 19. Houston Rockets (57.8%)
- 20. Boston Celtics (63.4%)
- 21. Charlotte Hornets (39.4%)
- 22. Milwaukee Bucks (62%)
- 23. Atlanta Hawks (53.4%)
- 24. Washington Wizards (52%)
Now, for the teams with the least amount of injuries over the past five seasons. The Oklahoma City Thunder have seen the fewest number of injuries over the past five seasons. They saw a total of just 65 injuries from 29 different players for an average of just 2.2 missed-games-per-season. The most days missed the Thunder have seen was just 19 games in 2038. The Thunder also had a winning percentage of 56.8-percent and if we throw out the 2040 season where they returned to tanking, they had a win percentage of 63.1-percent from 2036-2039.
The Toronto Raptors have seen the second fewest injuries over the past five seasons. They saw just 68 injuries from 27 different players for an average of 2.5 games missed per season. This past season (2040) really skewed their numbers with 40 total games missed. Beyond that, between 2036-2039, the most games missed was six. Yes, just six. Now, the Raptors have had a winning percentage of just 36.8-percent over that time frame.
The Chicago Bulls have seen the third fewest injuries over the past five years. They've seen a total of 77 games missed from 30 different players for an average of 2.6 games missed per season. The most injuries they've seen in a season was 29 missed games in 2037. Beyond that, they've seen three missed games in 2040, six in 2038 and 18 in 2037. They also appeared in two finals over that time span and have a winning percentage of 51-percent.
The Golden State Warriors have seen the fourth fewest injuries over the past five seasons. They have seen a total of 94 injuries from 31 different players for an average missed games of three. This past season (2040) too has skewed their stats. They saw 34 missed games in 2040, well over the rest of the seasons as they saw 26 in 2039, 11 in 2038, six in 2037 and 17 in 2036. The Warriors too had one of the better winning percentages over the past five seasons at 58.3-percent.
The last team I'll talk about here is the Los Angeles Clippers who have seen the fifth fewest injuries over the past five seasons. The Clippers have seen a total of 81 games missed from just 26 different players for an average missed games of 3.1. As the trend continues, 2040 was their biggest season in terms of missed games by far. They saw 50 missed games in 2040 as they saw just 11 in 2039, three in 2038, five in 2037 and ten in 2036. They had a winning percentage of 54-percent as well.
As previously mentioned, I hope to add more seasons to this down the road and pull in a greater sample size of everything to better pin down my findings.
As for my findings, there is no clear picture. There is no correlation between talent in terms of injuries. There may just be cursed teams.
I also have collected the injury history for each of the 308 players I used for this article. I will release an article soon with that information.
