Injuries have become a major epidemic in the NBA over the past few seasons. In the 2024-25 NBA season alone, seven players suffered an Achilles injury, with three of those coming in the playoffs. Many people around the league are trying to find answers for the uptick in injuries as of late. Former Los Angeles Lakers trainer Gary Vitti seems to have the answer.
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Following Tyrese Haliburton’s Achilles injury in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals, great discourse sparked surrounding the topic. Some figures, such as one-time All-Star Nick Van Exel, believe that the lack of high-top shoes is the reason. Gary Vitti wouldn’t go that far; rather, he points to youth basketball.
“What we hear a lot is too many games, too much basketball at a young age, and that is absolutely true,” Vitti said on Byron Scott’s Fast Break. “But maybe not explained the way it should be explained.”
The emphasis on AAU basketball among children is higher than ever before. On any given weekend, kids are playing as many as 6 games a day. Similar to a vehicle, eventually the amount of mileage put on the human body will catch up to you.
It doesn’t help that many players don’t learn the right way to train their bodies from a young age. Vitti continued to break down the science of it all.
“What do we know of the human body? Repetitive movement causes compensation, and the compensation causes dysfunction. In terms of basketball, the game is played between here and here, what we call the core,” Vitti said.
Teams across the league prioritize the importance of their players building upon their core. However, that wasn’t always the case. In the nearly 30 seasons Vitti served as the Lakers’ trainer, only one player displayed a deep core understanding.
“Who’s a player that played over 20 years, that was doing core work before we even talked about core, and never got hurt?” Vitti asked Byron Scott. The former Los Angeles Lakers guard knew exactly who Vitti referred to. “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,” Scott said.
The 7-foot-2 big man remarkably only had two seasons in his career where he played fewer than 70 games in a season. Vitti attributed that to Abdul-Jabbar’s intentional training to strengthen his core.
“He was doing yoga. We may not have known what we know today about what he was doing, but when you look back on it, the man was a pioneer. The guy never pulled a muscle or anything like that,” Vitti proclaimed.
Players such as Abdul-Jabbar prioritized a lot of cross-sport training, which balanced tension throughout the body. Basketball is very demanding on the core and hips. From a young age, players receive instructions to solely work on their basketball abilities. Everything is a chain reaction.
“The game is so much faster and so much more powerful. Where is all that coming from? It’s coming from their hips. So these hip flexors get really tight. They start to rotate your pelvis forward. That starts to really pull on your hamstring because your hamstring attaches underneath your pelvis,” Vitti explained.
The solution isn’t as simple as training in different ways because it would have to begin during adolescence. Reworking the entire philosophy of grassroots sports may be the answer, but that is easier said than done.
