Overview
- A peer-reviewed paper in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine reported that players showed significant increases in minutes over the 10 to 15 games before an Achilles rupture, with veterans showing higher lifetime workloads and younger players rupturing under lighter recent use.
- The NBA formally rejected the study’s conclusion, saying its own review of league data from 2012–13 to the present, done with independent epidemiologists and consultants, found no link between minutes played and Achilles injuries and that the paper has important methodological limitations.
- The debate follows an unusual cluster of seven Achilles ruptures in the 2024–25 season involving high-profile players and a return to a single rupture the next season, a pattern that has left causation uncertain.
- The league says it has spent the past year studying tendon injuries through a tendon health working group and additional research, and it plans to continue collaborative studies to reconcile different analyses.
- If researchers and the NBA converge on a cause, teams could change how they schedule minutes, monitor short-term spikes in play, and tailor conditioning or rehab plans to lower players’ risk of rupture.