NBA Defends Schedule Amid Injury-Riddled Start to Season

One of the subplots of the early NBA season has been a seemingly growing number of player injuries. But the NBA and commissioner Adam Silver are attempting to dispute those assumptions.

“All I can deal with is the data itself, and the data we have so far this season is we have the lowest number of injuries in the last three years,” Silver said Tuesday in a press conference before the NBA Cup final in Las Vegas.

The commissioner’s comments come less than a week after the NBA released a statement to counter a story from The Athletic claiming that the league’s dense early-season schedule, which has been slightly adjusted in the last three years to accommodate the NBA Cup, factors into the increased number of injuries. NBA chief communications officer Mike Bass said the number of injuries forcing star players to miss games, which the NBA defines as players who have made an All-Star Game or All-NBA team in the last three seasons, is down 25% year-over-year, the lowest in six seasons.

“When people say because of the Cup the season was denser leading up to now—it wasn’t, full stop. The level of density up until this point in the season is roughly what it’s been for the last decade. It’s just factually not true that, as a result of Cup scheduling, the first part of the season created a denser schedule,” Silver said Tuesday.

But there is other data to showcase the injury problem. According to Jeff Stotts, founder of In Street Clothes, there have been 2,062 total missed games due to either injury or illness through the first eight weeks of the season, which is up from 1,962 at the same point last year and 1,579 in 2023. 

Tom Haberstroh of Yahoo also pointed out in November that star players missed more games through the first month of the season than in each of the previous two years. Seven NBA All-Stars were injured to open the 2025–26 NBA season, including LeBron James, who missed his team’s season opener for the first time in his 23-year career. 

Silver acknowledged that the league has an issue keeping star players from missing games, but he said it’s an issue the league has “the least control over.” The NBA has tried to encourage teams from resting stars by tweaking the schedule to limit back-to-backs. It also implemented a player participation policy that fines teams for sitting stars, particularly for marquee games. The Cavaliers have already been penalized twice this year for a total of $350,000 for violating the policy.

Silver also said that other potential causes for injury and injury management are the increased pace of play in the NBA and the strenuous schedule of youth basketball that accelerates the wear and tear on players’ bodies.

“The answer is it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating for our teams. It’s frustrating for our fans. But I do think we have to be true to what the evidence is as opposed to saying there’s a narrative out there that injuries are up or injuries are up because of scheduling,” Silver said.

One frequently raised solution is to shorten the regular-season schedule, which Warriors head coach Steve Kerr once again suggested last month. That could be a nonstarter with owners and the league because of lost revenue.

“At the end of the day, the NBA, it’s more of an entertainment,” Nuggets forward Spencer Jones, who has several investments in start-ups focused on injury prevention, told Front Office Sports. “Sometimes, companies got to make money, so I don’t think they’re going to change too much on the 82-game schedule.”

NBA Europe League Update

The NBA is expected to launch its European league in 2027, and executives have floated a 16-team structure with 12 permanent clubs and four that will rotate. Several key European markets are expected to have teams, including Paris and London, but Silver said nothing has been set in stone.

“I would say we’re casting a very, very wide net right now and essentially saying to anyone who’s interested, ‘Come see our bankers, explain to us why you’re interested, how you view the opportunity, what resources you would put behind opening a team,’” Silver said. 

The commissioner said he expects more “serious conversations” with interested parties in January.

Cup at College Arenas?

Silver also spoke on Amazon Prime Video’s NBA Cup final pregame show Tuesday and confirmed reports that the league is exploring moving the NBA Cup final out of Las Vegas next season. He said that the NBA is discussing with Amazon Prime, its NBA Cup broadcast partner, about potential options, citing “storied college arenas” as an example.

The NBA Cup has played the semifinals and finals of the tournament in Las Vegas in its first three seasons, but the league announced in September that the semifinals will be played at the home arenas of higher-seeded teams starting with the 2026–27 season.