Los Angeles Lakers starman Lebron James has come out to express his disgrace with the rising number of injuries on players in the NBA offseason championship.
Taking to his twitter account, the Lakers blamed the NBA for the injuries saying it is due to condensed fixtures of playoff matches.
This comes just few days after yet another all-star, LA Clippers Kawhi Leonard injured his knee during Clippers game 4 on Monday 14th June. The all-star NBA forward was ruled out of game 5 of the western conference semifinals on Wednesday with what his team termed as a knee sprain. Clippers however went on to win game 5 119 – 111 against the Utah Jazz, game 6 will be played on Saturday 19 June, Clippers still lead 3 – 2 thanks to Kahwi’s brilliant play in game 3 and game 4 before he knocked his knee.
LA Clippers Kahwi Leonard has been ruled out for the rest of the season due to Knee injury
PHOTO; Courtesy
Clippers later on confirmed that Kahwi will be out for the rest of the season saying in a press statement “There is no timetable for his return”.
The two time NBA finals MVP has now joined a list of seven other NBA all-stars injured in this off season’s playoffs including Lebron James himself, which by far is the highest number of all-stars missing a playoff game in the league history.
According to Lebron, he predicted before the start of the season that there will be many injuries due to condensed schedule but the league ignored his concerns.
LA Lakers Lebron James
PHOTO: Courtesy
“They all did not wanna listen to me about the start of the season. I knew exactly what would happen”, the Lakers said in a series of tweets, he went on to tweet “I only wanted to protect the well-being of the players which ultimately is the PRODUCT AND BENEFIT of OUR GAME! These injuries aren’t just ‘PART OF THE GAME’. It’s the lack of PURE RIM REST before starting back up”.
The NBA defending champion went on to say “8, possibly 9 ALL-STARS has missed Playoff games (most in league history). This is the best time of the year for our league and fans but missing a ton of our fav players. It’s insane. If there’s one person that knows about the body and how it works all year round it’s ME! I speak for the health of our players and I hate to see this many injuries at this time of the year. Sorry fans wish you guys were seeing all your fav guys right now.”
Less than 24 hours after Lebron’s remarks the NBA through its spokesperson Mike Bass issued a statement addressing the increased number of injuries and how the fixtures have been affected. The league, however, said that the injuries have not affected the playoffs in any way saying there isn’t much difference in terms of injuries this season compared to the past seasons.
Despite the denial by the league that the injuries have not had any impact on the schedule of the season, it is clear most teams needed more rest as more and more players to continue to miss matches due to injuries. This is actually the shortest offseason for any team in NBA League history as Lakers for example will go a record 71 days only between NBA games.
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