A Data Science approach analysing the Impact of Injuries on Basketball

Player and Team Performance

Analytics are very well known in Sports [1]. NBA player performance is
negatively affected by sport injuries. Despite the
improvement of prevention and rehabilitation strategies, injury
rates remain high. Therefore, team senior management are required to estimate
and reduce injury risks, while optimizing team
tactics and strategies regarding workload and rest days [2]. Especially,
performance forecasting for betting companies or sports
clubs is highly substantial either in terms of value or improvement. Therefore,
Sports Analytics help and support domain experts to predict possible dire
circumstances with the purpose to
reduce costs and increase team or player performance [3].
This study examines in detail basketball health data over the
latest decade (2010–20) through Data Mining (DM) in correlation
with player and team performance. In addition, it attempts to find
commonalities by performing classification according to injury
and pathology criteria. Furthermore, it shows important insights

about team injuries impact associated with advanced basketball

analytics. Finally, it presents the performance impact of specific
longevity injury types, through DM techniques.
Injuries constitute the biggest concern for teams, management
and fans, especially for the best players, because they could dramatically
affect the overall team performance [4]. The increased
ambiguity in injury prediction depends on many parameters,
which are difficult to recognize and quantify.
Sports participation is very popular all over the world with
benefits on physical, psychological and social aspects. Regular
engagement in sports has been found to enhance: (i) the musculoskeletal
system by increasing muscular strength, endurance and
power and contributing to the bone mineral content and density,
(ii) the cardiorespiratory function, e.g. reducing the risk of coronal
heart disease, (iii) mental health by promoting self-esteem and
generally by improving the quality of life. A healthy and sports
active lifestyle for an athlete can reduce also any association with
injury in the preparation before or during the game [5]. Despite
the health benefits, taking part in sports exposes the athlete
to high injury risks. The occurrence of injuries on recreational
and competitive athletes is affected by multiple parameters, such
as the age, gender, sport type (contact or non-contact), training
workload, moving patterns that each sport includes and othe

Basketball is widespread all over the world, from recreational

to professional gaming levels. Its popularity is mostly due to the
NBA competition and promotion [2], as it is recognized as the
top basketball competition in the world [4]. The performance
of NBA players increases the popularity and the socio-economic
condition of the player, the club, as well as the whole league
[16]. Basketball is considered generally as non-contact game with
increased physical demands, high intensity and speed moving
patterns ([2] and [17]). However basketball has evolved over time
to become an increasingly physical game in which contact is
accepted and expected from players ([18] and [19]).
Big Data collection and information management are emerging
sectors for trainers, physicians, doctors and health domain experts in Sports,
but they could help in injury risk factor identification [20]. Hence, the use of
biometric tracking technologies, such
as accelerometer, Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID), Heart
Rate (HR), and Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors and wearables can
help to understand player or team disadvantages and
optimize the performance, reduce potential injuries and enhance
the recovery process [21].
The structure of the remainder of this manuscript is as follows:
2. Background: reviews the literature on important sports
analytics concepts in correlation with players’ and teams’
health data.
3. Methodology — Research Design: The definition of the
problem, noteworthy characteristics and analytics, important injury and
pathology analytics that influence team and
player performance.
4. Findings: provides the appropriate data analysis of basketball injury analytics
in correlation with team and player
performance.
5. Discussion: Results illustration and critical analysis based
on the inferred observations. In addition, this study provides a clear
experimental analysis and evaluation over the
existing and past basketball injury analytics.
6. Conclusion & Future Work: The evaluation purpose in the
association of basketball performance analytics with injury
analytics for teams and players and how their expansion
can be applied to different sports domains. According to
these directions future work is proposed.
Appendices: Segmentation and classification of important basketball injury
analytics based on different features of advanced
basketball analytics

Characteristics of landing impact in athletes who have not returned to

sports at the pre-injury competition level after anterior cruciate
ligament reconstruction

Most patients with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury undergo ACL
reconstruction (ACLR) with the expectation of being able
to return to sport (RTS) at the same level of the competition as
before the injury.1 However, in a meta-analysis of post-ACLR
patients, only approximately 63% of patients were able to RTS at
their pre-injury competition level.2
Factors related to RTS status after ACLR can be categorized into
demographic information such as age, gender and competition
level, knee joint function, and psychological factors.3 Post-ACLR
knee function characteristics, such as greater laxity,4 swelling,5
weak knee extensor strength,6 and greater asymmetry in singleleg hop
distance,7 have been reported in patients who have not
been able to RTS at their pre-injury competition level.
In patients after ACLR, the magnitude and asymmetry of landing
impact are important functional variables related to increased ACL
strain and poor athletic performance such as jump and change of
direction.8,9 In a previous study comparing the landing impact of
patients after ACLR and healthy athletes, the peak vertical ground
reaction force (pVGRF) on the operated side in patients after ACLR
was less than that in healthy athletes.10 In previous studies
comparing pVGRF during landing in patients after ACLR on the
operated and nonoperated sides, pVGRF on the operated side was
lower and more likely to be asymmetrical.11e13
The pVGRF during single-leg landings is larger than that in other
jump landing tasks.14 Since most ACL injuries occur in single-leg
landings rather than double-leg landings,15 it is important to
analyse the biomechanics during single-leg landings.16 Therefore,
this study aimed to investigate the association between the RTS
status and landing impact during landings in post-ACLR patients.
Additionally, the strength of the association between RTS and
landing impact was evaluated while accounting for knee function
variables. We hypothesized that patients who are unable to RTS at
their pre-injury competition level would have a lower and more
asymmetrical pVGRF on the operated side than those able to RTS at
their pre-injury competition level, even after adjusting for knee
function variables.

Research on the Design of Sports Injury Estimation Model based

on Big Data

Athletes are affected by various factors during training, and the

injury frequency is relatively frequent. If the treatment is not timely
and the adjustment of sports training program is unreasonable, it
will affect the physical health of athletes, and it is difficult to improve
performance [1]. Therefore, accurately estimating the degree
of injury has become the key to help athletes improve their physical
fitness. At present, the estimation accuracy of athletes’ injury degree is
relatively low. In order to improve this situation, this paper
introduces big data analysis technology on the basis of previous
research, and puts forward the research on the design of injury
estimation model [2]
Rotator cuff injuries in overhead sports

Shoulder injuries like rotator cuff tears are prevalent in overhead

sports athletes, especially in tennis, volleyball, baseball, swimming,
and American football [1–3]. Rotator cuff injuries can be either
chronic or acute. The chronic rotator cuff injury is usually caused
by overuse coupling of abduction with external rotation, which
impinges the cuff and leads to enormous stresses in the shoulder
joint [4]. Elasticity and tensile strength of the rotator cuff would be
damaged by repetitive stress and subacute injury in overhead sports,
resulting in inflammation, degeneration, calcification, and tearing
of tendons [5]. In addition, the relatively poor blood supply of the
rotator cuff tendons also contributes to the frequent development
of degenerative changes up to tenopathy. As reported, a baseball
pitcher can throw approximately six hundred times, a tennis player
can swing a racquet one thousand times, and a swimmer can stroke
sixteen thousand times in a normal week of practices and games.
Connor et al noticed that 8 of the 20 (40%) throwers they studied
suffer from partial or full-thickness cuff tears in dominant shoulders. Since
many of the rotator cuff tears are asymptomatic, the
prevalence of rotator cuff tears is usually underrated. The rotator
cuff pathology usually coexists with internal impingement, superior labrum
anterior to posterior (SLAP) lesions, and subacromial
pathology [6–9]. Therefore, early recognition and professional management
are necessary in athletes with rotator cuff injuries. This
review mainly introduced the injury biomechanics, presentation,
evaluation, and treatment strategies of rotator cuff injuries in the
overhead athletes.

Using Wearables Data for Differentiating Between Injured and

Non-Injured Athletes
Due to differences in individual characteristics during physical
training, similar external loads can result in different internal load.
When the external training load is defined as the work completed
by an athlete and the internal load represents an individual physiological
response to training [10]. The relationship between the
external and internal load can improve load management to improve
performance on one hand and reduce injury risk on the other
hand. Training in group setting makes internal load even more
important for monitoring since the same external load is prescribed
for all group’s member. Wearable sensor technology can provide
information about physical performance and may allow to adjust
training loads to the trainees’ performance and identify those prone
to musculoskeletal injuries.
In this study, smartwatches were used to collect internal and
external loads data of 40 athletes over a 80 days period. Heart rate
(HR) was collected continuously. Sleep data collection included time
and sleep duration; duration of REM sleep, light sleep: deep sleep
and time of awakenings. Out of this data, we defined 15 features
that may help differentiate between trainees that were injured
during the training program and those that were not. Our research
questions were:
(1) What features can be defined using heart rate and sleep data?
(2) What features may differentiate between injured and noninjured groups?
Our findings reveal that out of 15 features, 6 were significantly
different between the two groups.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: section 2 provides
background and reviews related work, section 3 presents the research methods
and tools, section 4 presents the results, and in
section 5 a summary of the research is presented, findings of the
study are discussed and directions for future examination are suggested.