Non-contact injury while playing with his national team. Those are almost never small, I hope it's not another young player out for a season. http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on...non-contact-knee-injury-in-international-play
Hard to see from that angle but I'm thinking MCL or meniscus... Good luck to the young man. Part of me wanted him too on draft day.
I really hate seeing players getting injured. Also, talk about some freaky voodoo. He just signed with Adidas. Add him to the long list of players who suddenly get injured after signing with them.
One thing I'm not feeling bad for is the Jazz fanbase...honestly they deserve it. For the young man, its a terrible injury...sucks big time. He looked great at the summer league, averaging like 20/5/5 and looked noticably bigger to me. Sadly, everything flushes down the toilet with a torn ACL...he might make it back after the all-star break if everything goes right but there is a chance he misses all season.
You're right. He was bigger; this raises an interesting point, though. I was watching the Analytics Conference from 2014; Stan Van Gundy was there and the subject of training, conditioning, and analytics came up during this meeting. Stan Van said something interesting, and I'll paraphrase; he said one of the reasons he things so many injuries are happening is what while we're doing a great job of making guys bigger, stronger, and more explosive, that there might be a correlation between that and the injuries happening at a very high rate. Add in to what I heard Vitti say yesterday during his interview w/Trudell; guys are moving at a very fast rate right now. As a matter of fact, Vitti alluded to the fact that Kobe wasn't as quick or fast as some of these guys when Kobe was their age due to the advancement in training and conditioning that we're now seeing at the NBA level. I mean Exum suffered a non-contact injury. He wasn't even touched.
Looking at that gif, to me looks like he was moving pretty fast, takes off of one foot and jumps another 4-5 feet coming down hard on both feet again to then explode upward. With the landing not smooth or at best of angles for such an abrupt shift in mass placed on his knees. Kobe always had quickness and explosion plus certainly great athleticism. But he also always had such great footwork, fundamentals and economy of motion and "smoothness" to his game. Even when he was at his peak SWOL for a few years. Kobe would have taken an extra dribble maybe. But same move he would have done certainly would have looked "smooth" not so abrupt like that. Clarkson seems to have some of that great "smooth" to his game.
It's simple guys: fast moving objects aren't supposed to stop and start quickly. The NBA wants more athleticism, they're going to get more injuries. I called this years ago when Rose was at his peak: humans aren't built to stop and start that quickly, leap from those positions, and move with that type of agility. Our bones, ligaments, tendons, whatever aren't built to take those kinds of forces. There's absolutely a direct correlation between the athletic demands of the current NBA and the high frequency of torn ligaments and tendons. Absolutely. Is it overtraining? In some instances maybe, but the reality is guys like Westbrook and Giffin have forced the league to try to speed up and jump higher to keep up with them. Guys are pushing their bodies past their ability levels in order to do more and more dynamic things at younger and younger ages. Are these guys faster/quicker than Kobe was at their age? Yeah probably, but Kobe also came from a generation that was frankly smarter. All of our modern training methods have brought us to this point, but it's also given people a false sense of security. They think "oh we know more than we did 10 years ago, we're doing this right." It's the Cross-fit culture. NO! You're still doing it wrong, you're just reaching new levels of wrong-ness. You might say "well Kobe isn't athletic anymore why did he get hurt?" Because he's old and pushing his body to keep up with these young guys who are willing to tear an ACL in order to make the most dynamic play possible. You might say "well Brandon Jennings and Wes Matthews tore their Achilles and they're not tremendous athletes." Well actually they're very good athletes, but they're trying to keep up with guys who are more athletic and pushing themselves farther. That leads them to the limits of what they can do and they end up hurting themselves. The NBA is TOO reliant on athleticism and dynamic play. I blame Jordan a little bit for that. I blame LeBron a little. I blame the general public for only being interested in dunks and crossovers. If there were more value placed on footwork in the NBA, we'd have less of an issue. They wouldn't have to market guys who jump out of the gym at impossible angles and we'd see more Hakeems. Instead we're seeing 15 guys try to be the next Jordan even if they're 6'11". Yeah I'm looking at you Durant and Davis.
Hmm, I think you guys are onto something here, and I don't like it. The NBA having some of its top stars getting hurt more often because of increased emphasis and reliance on athlericism is not good, because I don't see that changing anytime soon. It'll only continue with the next crop of up and coming stars.
The players who rely on athleticism...high fly acts...are susceptible to injuries as they contort in mid-air and land funny. Injure themselves and are never the same since. Derrick Rose is the high profile one I can think of. Not surprising players of the other ilk such as an Andre Miller are still out there and able to land spots. Duncan too. Fundamentals as opposed to flash.
I never wanted this guy. I compared him to Shaun Livingston pre draft. Looks like my prediction is a bit high. Good luck Exum, I hope you recover and play this season.
