Nate Tramdaks, Staff Writer
One of the unique aspects of the Joel Embiid fan, enjoyer, watcher experience is that, through osmosis, you become akin to various parts of the human body. He tore his meniscus (which acts as a cushion in your knee to stop the femur and tibia from grinding against one another) three times during the course of his career in 2017, 2021, and 2024, opting for arthroscopic knee surgery in 2025. The scope in 2025 was aimed at being the mother of all surgeries. In the past, Embiid treated his meniscus tears by having surgery to remove the torn piece of tissue. This approach, known as a partial meniscectomy, allows athletes to return to competition relatively quickly. The trade-off, however, is that removing portions of the meniscus leaves less cartilage to absorb the tremendous forces placed on the knee.
The NBA has faced a meteoric rise in injuries at and below the knee to start the 2026-2027 season. As of November 10th, there have been 691 total player games missed across the league. The dominant source of these missed games is knee injuries, accounting for 185 of the 691 games. With every game having no fewer than 5-6 players on the injury report, questions are starting to arise about the physical demands of the modern NBA, and what can be done to remedy it.
The first thing everyone points to is the number of games and the existence of back-to-backs. There are reasons beyond injuries to shorten the schedule, but a 2024 NBA study found no significant relationship between congested scheduling and increased injury rates. The NBA has played 82-game seasons since 1967, and players today have access to better medical care, nutrition, travel accommodations, and recovery technology than ever before. So why are injuries still such a persistent problem?
A new frontier people are exploring is the rise of youth year-round basketball. Specifically looking at the AAU circuit and basketball specialization at a young age. Unlike previous generations, many young players now compete almost continuously, leaving little time for their bodies to recover from the physical demands of the sport. A 2025 study published in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine examined 318 NBA first-round draft picks from 2013–2023. It found that players who participated in multiple sports during high school missed 13.5% of games due to injury, compared with 16.9% for basketball-only athletes, over their first three NBA seasons.
To address the injuries, the solution may need to come in the form of a rule change that drastically changes the sport. The way the game is played now, a sport dominated by pace-and-space, players are asked to move so quickly laterally and cover so much ground that there may not be a solution that directly addresses injuries. 20-minute games would be great, but players will still get hurt because the game is so taxing. An example change would be changing the point values. Inside the arc, shots are worth three points, and outside the arc are worth four. This will change the balance of players’ shot diet, keeping players closer to the basketball, and they will not have to cover as much ground.
