The Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers are the top two teams in terms of player injuries since the start of the 2018-19 season, as relayed in a wide-ranging report from The Athletic.
And that’s not just the NBA. That’s all of major sports.
The Athletic cited ManGamesLost.com as its source.
“The website’s data runs through games played on Monday. So from October of 2018 through Feb. 15, the Bulls’ players had missed 605 games to 604 for Cavs players,” The Athletic reported. “Due to the pandemic and the general flow of a schedule in an ongoing season, the two teams haven’t played the same amount of games on their schedules.”
Along with the injuries, the Cavs have sat shooting guard J.R. Smith and now center Andre Drummond while trying to trade each player. They also did not play shooting guard Kevin Porter Jr. at the beginning of this season for undisclosed reasons. Porter has since been traded to the Rockets.
Having injury-prone power forward Kevin Love on the roster has impacted the Cavs greatly, as Love has yet to appear in more than one game this season with a calf strain. Overall, the Cavs were decimated with injuries in the early season, but fought through to a 8-7 start. They are just 2-12 since then and have lost eight straight.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Cavs are also the NBA’s losingest team since October 2018. The Bulls are third.
