The following is an op-ed by Ram Shalev (MSc Eng. MBA). Ram is the CEO & Co-Founder of PhysiMax, an automated movement pattern analytics solution that provides difference-making insights for top pro-sports teams, D1 collegiate programs, youth academies and clinics.
GMs, coaches, fans — in basketball, everyone strives to find the next superstar. The need is even greater when you had a less-than-impressive season. Fortunately, basketball is a forgiving sport and even the poorest performing teams in the NBA are presented with a chance to turn things around next season. If, that is, they choose wisely in the NBA draft. But how do you make sure your draft pick stays healthy enough to do the job he was chosen to do — to bring your team to the heights of success?
The NBA draft, indeed, is the game’s Great Equalizer. Some of the top players who eventually led their teams to greatness – Patrick Ewing, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O’Neal, even LeBron James – were all top-3 selections, awarded to teams that had performed poorly that year. If coaches choose wisely, they might just change the course of team history.
Or not; this year’s first round choice — Ben Simmons — didn’t quite work out the way the 76ers thought he would. The choice of Simmons excited the imagination of fans of the moribund Philadelphia squad, with fans at the beginning of the season anticipating a major turnaround in the team’s fortunes. How disappointed they were when it turned out that Simmons had to spend all season on the bench after suffering a heartbreaking injury to his right foot during practice.
Ditto for the Sixers other great hope — Joel Embiid — which in a way was even harder for fans to “process,” as they like to say in Philadelphia. This season, Embiid overcame 2 years of rehabilitation to reignite the basketball-crazed city with inspiring performances and spark hope in the hearts of fans, only to sustain a season-ending injury — a torn meniscus in his left knee. The team’s losses to Simmons’ injury were theoretical — but with Embiid, it was very clear what the Sixers had lost.
Simmons and Embiid are far from the only examples of NBA draft pick misfortune. Would-be greats dot the statistics and record books of the NBA, as the hopes of teams were dashed by injuries early in a draft pick’s rookie season, or before they began playing at all. A partial list includes players like Greg Oden (Trail Blazers 2007), Adam Morrison (Hornets 2006), Jonathan Bender (Pacers 1999), Pervis Ellison (Kings 1989), Jabari Parker (Bucks 2014), and many, many more.
There’s a lesson to be learned here: Just getting a top draft pick isn’t enough; you have to make sure that draft pick stays healthy enough to play, and remains healthy throughout the season. While that’s true for any player, it’s especially true for a lottery pick, who was chosen specifically to lead a team back to glory. There’s a great deal riding on the shoulders of those top picks – and if they fail in their task, especially if they are sidelined by an injury that perhaps could have been avoided, the disappointment is even greater.
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So how do you make a successful draft pick? Coaches have many resources they draw on — advanced statistics, endless footage, scout observation, draft combine scores, personal workouts and even social media. And, of course, their inherent skills, using their sixth sense to decide if a player has the “it” factor.
What’s missing in this strategy is objective, reliable information about a prospect’s injury risk factors and physical proposition. Unfortunately, there is not yet a mandatory pre-draft test that supplies such data. That’s where movement pattern analysis technology comes in – technology that provides coaches with a virtual team of biomechanical experts that output valuable insights that can lead them to making a more informed draft selection. With the latest solutions offering quick & automated assessment, teams need no more than a few minutes to obtain this imperative piece of knowledge during personal pre-draft workout sessions.
By getting a complete picture of a player’s capabilities — how strong his knees are, how stable his ankle movement is, how refined is his jumping technique — teams can greatly increase the likelihood that their pick will remain healthy and able to perform daily, and develop training plans that will enable turn them into the superstar they were yearning to get. Adding this piece to their puzzle, NBA decision-makers can sleep just a bit more soundly at night, knowing that they are way ahead of the curve.