Are there always this many injuries? Or has the last few years been particularly bad?

[oarabbus]

There are always ankle sprains and whatnot going around but man, there are a ton of bad injuries to high profile players this and the past few seasons. Or is it always like this and my memory is playing tricks on me?

[L.Kizzle]

Injuries have been happening since the NBA started.

Mo Stokes being paralyzed
Elgin Baylor messing up his knee
Wilt Chamberlain shattering his knee
Dave Bing messing up his eye
David Thompsons destroying his knee
Bernard Kings tear
Michael Jordan breaking leg
Ralp Sampson going down
Larry Birds back
Kevin Johnson
Tim Hardaway
Anfernee Hardaway
Grant Hill
Tracy McGrady
Yao Ming
Gilbert Arenas
Brandon Roy
Greg Oden
Paul George

Things happen.

[kshutts1]

Don't remember where I read it to properly give credit where it's due... but someone hypothesized that we are seeing more ligament/joint injuries due to improved physical conditioning/prowess. Seems counter-intuitive, but they made a solid point. Perhaps medicine/training/lifting etc has progressed more quickly than the body's tolerance? So the uber- quick/strong/agile/fast stops, starts, plants, etc wear on the body.

Oh, and the ever-present media coverage. It's grown exponentially in just the last ten years, much less last fifty. So any injury is "breaking news" now.