Collision with opponents—but not foul play—dominates injury mechanism in professional men’s basketball

Abstract

Background To identify injury patterns and mechanisms in professional men’s basketball by means of video match analysis. Methods In Germany, injuries are registered with the statutory accident insurance for professional athletes (VBG) by clubs or club physicians as part of occupational accident reporting. Moderate and severe injuries (absence of > 7 days) sustained during basketball competition in one of four seasons (2014–2017 and 2018–2019) in the first or second national men’s league in Germany were prospectively analyzed using a newly developed standardized observation form. Season 2017–2018 was excluded because of missing video material. Results Video analysis included 175 (53%) of 329 moderate and severe match injuries. Contact patterns categorized according to the different body sites yielded eight groups of typical injury patterns: one each for the head, shoulders, and ankles, two for the thighs, and three for the knees. Injuries to the head (92%), ankles (76%), shoulders (70%), knees (47%), and thighs (32%) were mainly caused by direct contact. The injury proportion of foul play was 19%. Most injuries (61%) occurred in the central zone below the basket. More injuries occurred during the second (OR 1.8, p = 0.018) and fourth quarter (OR 1.8, p = 0.022) than during the first and third quarter of the match. Conclusion The eight identified injury patterns differed substantially in their mechanisms. Moderate and severe match injuries to the head, shoulders, knees, and ankles were mainly caused by collision with opponents and teammates. Thus, stricter rule enforcement is unlikely to facilitate safer match play.

Four distinct patterns of anterior cruciate ligament injury in women’s professional football (soccer): a systematic video analysis of 37 match injuries

“…Injuries sustained during matches with the national team were systematically excluded. Injuries and contact mechanisms were defined by video match analysis as previously described by our study group21–23 and according to current guidelines 24. Briefly, a contact injury was defined as any injury due to external forces directly at or adjacent to the injured body site, either by contact with another player or with an object such as the goal or the ball, immediately before or at the same time as the suspected injury.…”

“…Inclusion and exclusion criteria, the procedure of video production, the provision of video footage, data collection and video analysis were identical to those described in previous literature reports 21–23 25. In short, this prospective cohort study is based on the nationwide ACL registry in German football, to which all professional football clubs in the German first division were invited to report all new ACL injuries of their players 26.…”

“…Three expert raters with experience in professional football (LA, TD and CK) reviewed and classified each injury-causing event according to the applied observation form, which had been used in previous similar studies 21 27 28. A detailed description of the video analysis process is given elsewhere 21–23. In short, we used video footage provided by DieLigen GmbH, publicly available video footage from the German broadcasters ARD and ZDF and video matches uploaded from the social media channels of the respective football clubs.…”