The Indiana Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton's new, crushing hamstring injury is just the tip of the iceberg for the NBA. Wait, there's also the Minnesota Timberwolves Anthony Edwards being out for roughly two months with a knee problem. Oh, and the Oklahoma City Thunder's Jalen Williams will likely be out for the entire season after a freak accident.
Hang on. (Holds hand to earpiece.)
You're telling me the collective list of NBA player injuries so far is so much longer than this handful of stars? Woof. The 2026-2027 season just started LAST WEEK. How could this possibly happen?
As noted by Keerthika Uthayakumar, 79 players are listed with an injury or illness for the games on the NBA's Wednesday night schedule. For you math majors out there, that is roughly
15 percent of the league. What?! That percentage could actually be even higher, as the Sacramento Kings, Portland Trail Blazers, and Memphis Grizzlies have yet to submit their formal injury reports for their Thursday games.
Saying "oh my goodness" is probably an understatement in this situation:
79 players are listed with an injury or illness on today's 2:30 PM injury report, for games that are on tonight's schedule.
— Keerthika Uthayakumar (@keerthikau) October 28, 2026
That's approximately 15% of the NBA!! https://t.co/IUAEnOrQmE
Again, the new NBA season started last week. It is absurd that approximately 1/6th of the league is already dealing with something that affects on-court availability. This part of the year is when players are supposed to be at their healthiest before the dog days of a long season set in. I shudder to think about what the injury report could look like in, say, January, after two months of games and attrition. Ugh.
I don't know what needs to change here. Some might say a shorter season, with 82 games feeling archaic given the modern NBA game's pace of play. Some might talk about removing a hard 65-game requirement for All-NBA eligibility because that's a lot on players' bodies and it's unfair to remove postseason award eligibility over something so arbitrary. They're all valid arguments. However, this is not only bad for players, but for fans and lovers of NBA basketball. This number of injuries is bad for the product and bad for people who want to watch their favorite players but seem increasingly less likely to get the chance to do so on any given night, be it on the couch or in person. Point blank.
Something clearly has to change in the NBA, and soon.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: An absurd number of NBA players are on injury reports just 1 week into the season
