A rundown of the NBA's most important injuries

Plus, the NBA Cup starts tonight!

Before we get into the meat of the article, a quick reminder that the NBA Cup starts tonight! That’s the in-season tournament that debuted last year, in which group play eventually leads to an eight-team single-elimination tournament, culminating in a championship game in Las Vegas. The winning team earns a cool $500K for each player. You may remember it for those lovely, garish courts more than anything.

Well, the crazy courts are back (but much improved, I promise), and play tips off tonight! My buddy

Marc Campbell

just did an excellent preview podcast covering the Cup with former NBA role player extraordinaire Danny Green, so I’ll let them handle the heavy lifting. But this is a chance for even the league’s worst teams to play meaningful basketball in November and, hopefully, December; what’s not to like?

I’ll probably write something about the Cup as we progress further, but for now, let’s get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

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What have we done to offend the basketball gods? Why have we earned their displeasure? Who can we sacrifice (Chris Paul??) to regain their favor?

Usually, I don’t like to spend much time on injuries because they are both depressing and boring. But the sheer number of high-profile absences, capped by Chet Holmgren fracturing his pelvis a few nights ago, is daunting even by recent standards.

We’re fewer than a dozen games into the season, but various ailments and maladies have already changed the league's landscape. I’ve picked six important cases below, but we’re not even going to get to guys like Scottie Barnes, Joel Embiid, Khris Middleton, Tyrese Maxey, Malik Monk, or Kristaps Porzingis, among many others. It’s a bad time to be an NBA star.

6) Kawhi Leonard, vague knee stuff

The Leonard injury might be the least surprising, given his history. Still, it’s even more of a bummer than usual because these revamped Clippers, who exchanged Paul George for a bunch of defensive-minded role players, are actually pretty good!

The Clippers are 6-5 and rank tenth on defense (it was fourth before last night’s explosive affair with the Thunder, which we’ll talk more about below) despite facing a very difficult schedule. They’ve beaten Denver, Golden State, and Sacramento, and narrowly lost to Phoenix (twice) and OKC. Norm Powell has been on fire all season, Ivica Zubac has dominated the post and the glass, and Kris Dunn, Derrick Jones Jr., and Nic Batum have terrorized opposing scorers.

But James Harden has struggled to carry the offense by himself without PG and Kawhi. He’s averaging career-low shooting percentages and turning the ball over an outrageous 5.2 times per game. His defensive effort mostly consists of lumbering around and slapping at the ball as if it were a particularly loathsome fly, which, to be fair, works far more often than it should:

(Every advanced defensive metric has Harden as a neutral to above-average defender this year, which does not mesh with the eye test but does speak to the power of deflections and steals.)

It’s crazy to say, but if Leonard were reasonably healthy and playing, the Clippers might be a legitimate threat for home-court advantage in the West. He played 68 games and made Second Team All-NBA just last season, and he’s the exact sort of tentpole scorer the Clippers desperately need.

Kawhi theoretically is week-to-week, but a Shams report specifically said that he is expected to play this season. Feeling the need to call that out explicitly does not fill me with confidence.

5) Kevin Durant, calf strain

The Suns are without Kevin Durant after he injured his calf at the end of a win against the Mavericks, and he will be re-evaluated after two weeks.

Two weeks doesn’t sound long, but it includes games against Sacramento (whom they just lost to in OT in their first game without Durant), OKC, Minnesota, and New York (thank goodness for a Utah matchup tonight to get things rolling right). Soft-tissue injuries tend to linger and reappear, so even if Durant only misses seven or eight contests, there’s no telling if and when his calf will start hampering him again.

Bradley Beal had 28 in that first Sacramento game, but both Devin Booker and Grayson Allen will need to pick up some scoring slack (a combined 32 points on 35 shots).

The only good news: we’ll probably see more of Ryan Dunn, Phoenix’s rookie straightjacket. Watching him lock up opposing wings is a unique pleasure.

4) Ja Morant, week-to-week with a hip injury

Sigh.

Morant does something jaw-dropping nearly every game, but his health bar drops just as often. He can’t seem to stay together, and a recent hip injury (a posterior hip subluxation without dislocation and multiple associated Grade 1 pelvic muscle strains, to be technical) will keep him out for at least a couple of weeks.

Morant’s had a bad start to the season shooting-wise but still lives in the paint and possesses a keen passing sense. He looks as athletic as ever but has zero dunks so far this season! How this jam missed, I’ll never understand (it’s 3/4 of the way through the net!):