20-Year History of Missed Games in the NBA

Because of a lockout this year there will be an unusually packed schedule in the NBA which undoubtedly contributed to a theory that we are going to see more injuries this season. Don’t get me wrong, I think this idea sounds plausible because… well, I know how I feel after playing basketball too often in short period (muscle injury or ligament tear waiting to happen). But could it be also a reason why we overrate this issue? I’m not an athlete and I don’t usually play any back-to-backs so maybe that’s why I feel this way when I do…

Beside this point, have you ever wondered do players miss more games now than they used to?
Which teams’ players missed the most and least games in the last decade?

Well, I have so here’s how I tackled those topics:
I considered counting injuries at prosportstransactions.com but there’s one huge problem with this approach:
5 or even 10 day-to-day injuries are usually less significant than one semi-serious knee injury because of time needed for healing and rehabilitation. So why not try to measure the main effect of injuries which is missed games? That’s exactly what I’ve tried to accomplish. I downloaded data from last 20 seasons from dougstats.com, then in each season I sorted it by team’s name and then by players’ minutes per game.
I deleted all players who were 7th or lower on their own team and counted how many games such group played versus how many games they would have played given full 82 games schedule [or 50 in 1998-99].
My rationale here is “let’s count starters and 6th man, the rest doesn’t matter”.

In other words, for players considered the most important by their own teams what percentage of available regular season games did they miss?

Unfortunately it’s not a perfect tool, for example it totally ignores tanking or players who missed entire season because they were injured in the offseason, so if you have a better idea let me know in the comments.

With all that in mind here are the results:

Season	1991-92	1992-93	1993-94	1994-95	1995-96	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-00	2000-01
GP by Top6	11917	11817	11826	11503	12333	12474	12346	7682	12499	12318
# of Teams	27	27	27	27	29	29	29	29	29	29
% of total Minutes	70,65	69,36	69,73	68,79	69,24	70,96	68,79	68,98	68,00	68,53
% of Games Missed	10,29	11,04	10,98	13,41	13,56	12,57	13,47	11,70	12,40	13,67
Season	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
GP by Top6	12094	12924	12411	12538	12794	12599	12803	12598	12769	12862
# of Teams	29	29	29	30	30	30	30	30	30	30
% of total Minutes	67,49	71,09	69,25	67,15	69,15	67,58	68,37	68,17	67,94	67,18
% of Games Missed	15,24	9,42	13,02	15,05	13,32	14,64	13,26	14,65	13,49	12,86

… and as a graph…

IMHO we can spot four interesting points here:

1) Previous shortened season was one of the healthiest in the last 2 decades!

After I collected my jaw from the floor I have no comment on that other than the fact that it could mean nothing and puts more pressure to find some evidence that injuries were more common during that year.

2) Accidentally I’ve measured the effect of… league’s policy on suspensions!

Because when you compare this graph to changes in NBA rules you will notice that after playoffs in 1993 NBA added many rules regarding suspensions for fighting or hard fouls and the same thing happened after “The Malice at the Palace” in 2004 [BTW, spike in 2004-05 is an effect of suspensions to Artest, Jermaine and Jackson]. So whenever we have no idea if it helped to prevent fighting on the court it most definitely kept some players from playing…

3) What the hell happened between 2001 and 2003?

I re-checked it two times using different source for data [basketballreference.com and basketball-reference.com] but results were pretty much unchanged so I have no other explanation for it other than the most obvious one: it seems that the most lucky and the most unlucky year happened back to back.

In 2001-02 list of long absences was… long: Ratliff played in only 3 games, McDyess in 10, Grant Hill in 14, Camby in 29, Odom in 29, Terrell Brandon in 32 and Mashburn in 40 while during next season only 7 guys played in less than 50 games and only one below 35 games.
Am I missing something here or was it pure randomness at it’s best?

4) Outside of point 3) I’m shocked how consistent it is.

Standard deviation for last 18 seasons is around 2 and a half missed seasons. If we exclude 2001-03 it’s only 1 and a half season for around 180 players! I was expecting a lot more than that…

Anyway, if you are missing fun in this post here’s something to cheer you up… according to method with percentage of missed games the most lucky and unlucky teams in the last 10 years were…

Team	% of Missed Games by Top6 in Minutes Played per Game		Team	% of Missed Games by Top6 in Minutes Played per Game
Wizards	22,09		Suns	8,72
Clippers	20,10		Pistons	8,76
Pacers	18,35		Spurs	9,19
Knicks	15,71		Celtics	10,08
Bucks	15,69		Bulls	10,87
Warriors	15,67		Thunder/Sonics	11,00
Hornets	15,55		Lakers	11,83
Rockets	15,30		Magic	11,85
Heat	14,78		Sixers	12,07
Bobcats	14,61		Raptors	12,48

Suns’ medical staff is legendary at this point… and it may be justified.

Pistons were shockingly healthy during their run of consecutive conference finals appearances.

On the other hand we have Pacers [mostly thanks to the brawl], Clippers [notorious tankers] and Wizards [mostly due to Arenas but Haywood and Caron also contributed].

One last note, is it a coincidence that good teams were healthy and bad ones weren’t?
And if not what is the cause and what is the effect there?

UPDATE per Will Carroll’s suggestion:

2006-2011			2001-2005			1996-2000			1991-95			20 Yrs
Team	% missed		Team	% missed		Team	% missed		Team	% missed		Avg
atl	11,59		atl	16,38		atl	19,23		atl	7,60		13,70
bos	13,21		bos	6,95		bos	21,54		bos	12,15		13,47
cha	13,54		cha	17,28								15,41
chi	11,63		chi	10,12		chi	28,66		chi	8,62		14,76
cle	14,84		cle	10,41		cle	19,15		cle	11,18		13,89
dal	10,08		dal	15,81		dal	25,37		dal	17,64		17,23
den	13,62		den	13,82		den	19,39		den	10,93		14,44
det	13,41		det	4,11		det	12,64		det	12,68		10,71
gsw	19,76		gsw	11,59		gsw	30,12		gsw	20,41		20,47
hou	14,88		hou	15,73		hou	19,51		hou	13,98		16,03
ind	15,73		ind	20,98		ind	12,72		ind	8,54		14,49
lac	20,45		lac	19,76		lac	17,76		lac	11,91		17,47
lal	11,75		lal	11,91		lal	22,11		lal	14,27		15,01
mem/van	8,90		mem/van	17,48		mem/van	18,41		mem/van	15,45		15,06
mia	18,54		mia	11,02		mia	24,07		mia	15,41		17,26
mil	21,10		mil	10,28		mil	17,32		mil	3,33		13,01
min	12,97		min	12,64		min	18,90		min	9,35		13,47
njn	15,37		njn	9,92		njn	23,74		njn	14,23		15,81
nor/cha	15,20		nor/cha	15,89		nor/cha	19,19		nor/cha	10,81		15,27
nyk	17,60		nyk	13,82		nyk	18,05		nyk	8,17		14,41
orl	9,23		orl	14,47		orl	25,28		orl	13,94		15,73
phi	9,63		phi	14,51		phi	20,41		phi	16,34		15,22
pho	6,38		pho	11,06		pho	22,85		pho	13,13		13,35
por	10,24		por	15,61		por	15,20		por	7,15		12,05
sac	10,89		sac	15,04		sac	18,66		sac	14,72		14,83
san	12,07		san	6,30		san	19,67		san	8,09		11,53
sea/okc	10,37		sea/okc	11,63		sea/okc	15,12		sea/okc	5,89		10,75
tor	13,50		tor	11,46		tor	15,16		tor	25,41		16,38
uta	10,16		uta	15,69		uta	9,96		uta	4,11		9,98
was	26,75		was	17,44		was	19,76		was	22,76		21,68

So according to this method…
Top7 was [in that order]: Jazz, Pistons, Sonics/Thunder, Spurs, Blazers, Bucks and Suns.
Bottom7 was [in that order]: Wizards/Bullets, Warriors, Clippers, Heat, Mavs, Raptors and Rockets.

I’m not sure what to make of this, should we credit Stockton’s and Malone’s longevity to them or to their medical staff or to both? Although it’s is eye-catching how terrible Wizards/Bullets were in this regard, in all 5-year slices they were at least below average!

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