Summer Quandaries: Basketball Is A Contact Sport Rather Than A Collision Sport?

http://celticsgreen.blogspot.com/2014/09/sq14-41-basketball-is-contact-rather.html








Fortunately, unlike football, basketball has relatively few collisions like the one that felled Ryan Anderson last season when he took one on the chin from Gerald Wallace pursuing a loose ball.  Or the one where Laker center Andrew Bynum came down on Kendrick Perkins as he landed after a bound, and tore three ligaments in his knee (the Golden Triangle of knee injuries).  Or Paul George’s concussion in a smash-up with Dwayne Wade in this year’s playoffs.  Or Westbrook’s knee injury when Patrick Beverley lunged for the ball as Russell attempted to call time out.  And it isn’t always an opponent, ask Michael Kidd-Gilchrist who was taken out on a stretcher after teammate Jeff Taylor banged into the back of his head trying to block an opponent’s shot.  O.K., maybe “relatively” bears a closer examination.

“Only 9 NBA Players Got Concussions This Year” was the title of an article on fivethirtyeight.com/datalab last May.  Think about that for a moment--apparently nine was a smallish number.  Rather like military analysts reviewing a conflict in which the casualties were deemed acceptable.  Perhaps so since they go on to point out that basketball has the lowest concussion rate among the four major sports in the U.S. leagues.  Then again football and hockey are acknowledged to be collision sports and baseball features fielders are racing a hundred feet to converge on a fly ball dropping or nearing the fence, and pitchers (and likely fielders) throwing a very hard baseball nearly a hundred miles an hour to a target near a human head.  Seems to me that large men moving rapidly and often in opposite directions, is an inherently dangerous situation (nod to Hunt for Red October).

Perhaps basketball is a contact rather than a collision sport; but apparently that contact is often pretty hard and the human body is unprotected (as opposed to the other major sports where protective gear is prevalent and often has the gladiators looking very Star Wars storm-trooper-like).  I don’t have any solutions to these athletic extremes but can we at least agree that there is no room in the sport for sliding a foot under a jumper’s landing spot, slinging elbows, or pulling players into the floor (Yeah, I’m looking right at you Dwayne Wade).  

One of my prospective titles for this series concerns Lady Luck and her fickle ways; and injuries seem to definitely fit.  Let’s appreciate our heroic contestants and realize that, for our entertainment (well, and for an obscene amount of cash), they are putting their careers, livelihoods, and very lives on the line every time they step out onto that court.  No one who has played the game seriously, organized or not, comes away unscathed.  My decades as a gym rat cost teeth, stitches, bones, ankles, a hip, and chronic arthritis--and I wouldn’t give up a minute of those years.  Best game in the world, but brutal even when playing by our faculty noon game rules (1. Nobody gets hurt. 2. Don’t forget rule 1).

Only 23 more days until training camp.




bob
MY NOTE: Bleh.



.

I have to agree with Bob's comment: "Bleh."

I always find it laughable when anyone needs to justify that basketball is a contact sport and they compare it to football with the note that football players are well padded.

Pads or no, the contact element isn't even close; basketball is ballroom dancing by comparison.  Basketball is physical and a lot of hard contact is involved, yes, but to elevate it to anything even resembling the football level is like a guy wearing a dress and makeup saying he's macho.

This article doesn't really go fully down that road, but it does throw in the compulsory pads mention.

Take off the shorts and sleeveless shirt, put on the pads, and let's go do some Oklahoma's.  I'll show them some contact.

Yup, crashes in sports are a terrible risk, whether they're called collisions or contact.

Next subject, Lee. We won't include this one on your report card.

Sam