It happens every NBA season, or so it seems. Sometimes, it’s an ankle. Other times, it’s a shoulder.
This year, it’s a knee, one belonging to the league’s best player. We don’t yet know how serious it is, but Stephen Curry’s sprained MCL, which he sustained Sunday against the Rockets, has the potential to change everything, from who ends up advancing to this year’s NBA Finals to how history ends up judging this juggernaut of a Warriors team that’s run through the league for the last two seasons.
Of course, Curry isn’t the first player to have his body break during the playoffs. Below are 10 of the most devastating injuries ever sustained during the NBA’s postseason and how they affected each team involved.
10. Kendrick Perkins, 2010
It’s not a major leap to say that had Perkins not torn his MCL and PCL during Game 6 of the 2010 NBA Finals, the Celtics likely would have been able to knock off the Lakers and capture their second NBA title in three years.
The background: Boston, which had won the title in 2008, only to have their title defense in 2009 derailed by a season-ending knee injury to Kevin Garnett, held a 3-2 series lead over the Lakers. Then Perkins, who started 78 games for the Celtics that season landed awkwardly early on in Game 6.
With him out of the lineup, the Lakers — who were led by Kobe Bryant but also big men Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom — were able to bully Boston in the paint. The Celtics got out-rebounded in both Game 6, which they lost 89-67, and Game 7, which the Lakers were able to win 83-79, despite Bryant going just 6-for-24.
Would Bryant have one less title to his name had Perkins been around in Game 7? It’s certainly possible.
9. Yao Ming, 2009
The entire Yao era in Houston could be thrown onto this list. But it was his 2009 foot injury which was most devastating. Yao had actually managed to play 77 games that year, averaging 19.7 points and 9.9 rebounds for a Houston team that won 53 games. The Rockets advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since Hakeem was in town — only to see Yao sustain a hairline fracture in his left foot during Game 3 against the Lakers. Houston pushed the eventual champions to seven games before bowing out.
Yao wound up playing just five games the following season, his final one in the NBA.
8. Kevin Garnett, 2009
The Big Three era in Boston is an interesting one to look back on. On the one hand, the team did manage to win a title. Then again winning just one was certainly not the goal, though the failures are not exactly the team’s fault; the Celtics just couldn’t seem to avoid the injury bug. The Perkins blow is mentioned above, but there was also the 2009 knee injury that kept Kevin Garnett out of 26 regular season games and the playoffs entirely. Boston was able to to defeat the Sixers in the first round. But without KG, the Celtics had no answer for the explosive Dwight Howard-led Orlando Magic in the following series.
7. Amar’e Stoudemire, 2006
Poor Steve Nash and Mike D’Antoni. Together, the two changed basketball — remember Alvin Gentry giving D’Antoni a shoutout following the Warriors’ championship last year — yet they’ll go down as the leaders of one of the best teams to never quite make it to the top of the hill. Some say it’s because they didn’t play enough defense. Others believe you can’t win titles shooting jump shots and pushing the pace.
But the biggest hurdle Nash and D’Antoni faced was bad luck, whether in the form of suspensions, or nose bleeds, or injuries to stars. The latter occurred in the 2006 season, when a knee injury kept Amar’e Stoudemire off the floor for 79 games and the entire postseason. The Suns, incredibly, still managed to win 54 games and make it all the way to the Western Conference Finals. But there, they fell to Dallas Mavericks in six games. That was the furthest Mike D’Antoni, who was fired two years later, would ever get.
6. James Worthy, 1983
Normally, an injury to a rookie wouldn’t have a major impact on playoff results. But James Worthy was no normal rookie, nor was he in a normal situation.
Due to an earlier trade with the Cavaliers (because, of course), the Lakers, just months after winning a championship, were able to select Worthy No. 1 overall. He averaged 13.4 points and 5.2 rebounds per game while coming off the bench in his first season in the NBA and appeared in 77 games before breaking his leg in April. The Lakers, behind Magic and Kareem, were still able to make it to the NBA Finals. But without Worthy doing his thing on the fast break, L.A. was unable to net a single victory against the Sixers in the Finals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWRxHyu11n4
5. Dirk Nowitzki, 2003
The 2002-03 season was one of Dirk’s best. He averaged 25 points, 10 rebounds and three assists and led the Mavericks to a franchise record 60 wins. Nowitzki was just as good in the playoffs and had Dallas primed for its first ever Finals appearance after knocking off the Trail Blazers and Kings.
Then Nowitzki sprained his left knee colliding with Manu Ginobili in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals against the Spurs.
The injury knocked Dirk out for the rest of the series, which the Spurs eventually won 4-2. It was the first of many heart-breaking defeats for Nowitzki’s Mavs.
4. Derrick Rose, 2012
The injury that triggered the downfall. It took just one hop for Rose’s career to get ruined. Rose had won the MVP the year before and led the Bulls to 50 wins in 2012. Then his left knee gave out on him as he jumped into the lane, late in Game 1 of Chicago’s first-round series versus the Sixers.
No. 1 seed Chicago, helpless without Rose leading the charge, fell to the eighth-seeded Sixers in six games. Rose, like the Bulls, hasn’t been the same since. This injury could easily be at the very top of this list.
3. Russell Westbrook, 2013
As bad as the Rose injury was, no team has had more bad injury luck recently than the Thunder. Both Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant have gone down during the playoffs. But what was so devastating about Westbrook’s torn ACL in 2013 was that it occurred during a sequence that many consider borderline dirty.
The Thunder had won 60 games that year and appeared primed for a Finals run prior to this play. They were still able to advance past the Rockets behind some huge games from Durant, but didn’t have enough firepower without Westbrook to beat the Grizzlies, who knocked out OKC in five games the following series. Of course…
2. Kevin Durant, 2014
… that wasn’t the last major blow OKC was dealt. Two years later, a series of foot and leg injuries kept Durant off the floor for 55 games. Some miraculous play from Westbrook allowed the Thunder to remain in the playoff race. But OKC came up short and was forced to watch the postseason from home, flushing yet another season of prime Westbrook and Durant down the drain.
1. Magic Johnson, 1989
By this time Magic was already on the back nine of his career — which meant he was still good enough to be one of the top players in the league. He averaged 23 points and 13 assists a game in 1989 and led the two-time defending champion Lakers to 57 regular season wins and to a third-straight NBA Finals appearance. This was the year Pat Riley trademarked the phrase “Three-Peat” and it was understandable why.
Then Magic sustained a hamstring injury in Game 2 of the Finals against the Pistons. Without him at the point the Lakers were helpless against the Detroit Pistons Bad Boys. L.A. was swept and Riley has yet to win three titles in a row.
