I Have Had Enough Of These Damn Injuries, NBA

Tim McMahon of ESPN is reporting that Chris Paul will miss the next two to four weeks while recovering from a bruised left knee. Houston’s schedule over the next two weeks goes Mavericks, Grizzlies, 76ers, Hornets, Grizzlies, 76ers, Knicks, and Hawks, so they’ll be fine. More importantly, what’s with all these bullcrap injuries screwing up the NBA season?

Gordon Hayward’s was the worst, and most brutal, and probably the most important, but it’s just one of many early injuries mucking up the start of this campaign. Good teams are being affected—Kawhi Leonard is still out in San Antonio; Isaiah Thomas won’t be back until at least January; Nic Batum’s elbow has the Hornets scrambling; Markieff Morris is a couple weeks from recovering from hernia surgery; and Rodney Hood was carried off the floor last night in Minnesota. Lousy teams, too—Jeremy Lin’s knee injury was awful; Markelle Fultz is nursing some sort of mysterious shoulder injury that has so far prevented him from attempting a single three-pointer; Bobby Portis broke teammate Nikola Mirotic’s face in a practice fight; Seth Curry is out indefinitely with a stress reaction.

I’m going to need everyone to stop getting hurt, immediately. This shit is fucking up the season. Take the Celtics (please): Kyrie Irving’s usage in Boston has shot up from 21.5 opening night—reflecting a balanced distribution of shots during his minutes—to 31 against Milwaukee and 26.9 last night against Philadelphia, as the Celtics rework their rotation to cover for the loss of Hayward. They’ve got the fourth-worst offensive rating in the NBA after three games. That won’t last, I’m sure, but if the 2017-18 Celtics become the Kyrie Irving show, I am going to puke.

James Harden’s share of Houston’s offense will, presumably, also skyrocket, as his share of the ball-handling duties returns to pre-Chris Paul levels. Unlike the Kyrie situation in Boston, there’s ample evidence of this kind of distribution of offense working for Harden, so this will probably not be disastrous for the Rockets. Paul recorded a DNP-CD in Houston’s game against Sacramento Thursday night, and the Rockets narrowly pulled it out. Their schedule is relatively light headed into November. Still. Knock it off with the damn injuries, NBA. I’ve had enough of this shit.