Adam Silver plans to use Artificial Intelligence after the NBA's injury surge: "Ingest all video of every game a player's played in to see if we can detect some pattern"
Adam Silver plans to use Artificial Intelligence after the NBA's injury surge: "Ingest all video of every game a player's played in to see if we can detect some pattern" originally appeared on Basketball Network.
Damian Lillard. Jayson Tatum. And most recently, Tyrese Haliburton. Three All-Stars, three different teams, three different playoff moments, all with the same devastating result: a torn Achilles.
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The 2025 NBA Playoffs were supposed to be a celebration of star power, and for the newly crowned champion Oklahoma City Thunder, they absolutely were. But the sour taste left behind by a wave of devastating Achilles injuries made it hard for the rest of the league to fully enjoy the show.
Cuts and bruises aren't new to the league, but the sudden surge of this specific problem this season has everyone — from fans and analysts to coaches and executives — asking the same question: What's going on?
The repeating injury trend
This specific injury, hitting multiple franchise players in the same postseason, has sparked something deeper. And with his top stars dropping one by one, NBA commissioner Adam Silver is refusing to sit with his hands crossed, not trying to dig deeper. He's bringing every resource to the table, including Artificial Intelligence, to try and get ahead of a problem that's becoming far too familiar.
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"We are looking at it. And, in fact, We've already convened a panel of experts before Tyrese's (Haliburton) Achilles rupture. We had seven this year, and we had zero last year, under the exact same circumstances," Silver said, ready to tackle the issue head-on. "The purpose of convening those experts is to try to figure out what's going on."
Around the league, the speculation came quickly. Some pointed to sneaker trends, especially the decline of high-top shoes in favor of low-cuts. Others circled back to the NBA's long, physically demanding season, a 100-plus game marathon for the league's best players, many of whom go all-out every night.
However, while those theories might offer partial explanations, Silver isn't convinced that volume is the root cause of the problem.
"It is interesting, when we look back at the last 10 years, the majority of Achilles injuries happened before the All-Star break, so it's not clear it's the number of games," NBA Commish said.
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Related: Dwyane Wade believes Westbrook is still the OKC GOAT despite Shai's historic season: "We are talking about a player who went and did something, and people said it will never be done again"
Can AI help the NBA with this problem?
This isn't just some random injury wave the league can brush off, not when the faces of the NBA are the ones going down one by one. Silver knows that if the NBA wants to keep its top talent on the floor, it has to get smarter and has to do it fast. So now, he's turning to tech.
Silver believes AI may be the key to uncovering the invisible wear and tear that builds up before an Achilles gives out. The league is already working with data teams to feed full game footage into machine learning systems, hoping to detect some kind of patterns that human eyes may have missed for years.
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"I'm hopeful, by looking at more data, by looking at patterns… This is one area where AI is going to transform so many eras. The ability with AI to ingest all video of every game a player's played in to see if we can detect some pattern that we didn't realize leads to Achilles injuries… We are taking it very seriously," Silver concluded.
The NBA's injury problem doesn't have a simple fix. But for the commissioner, that's not an excuse to keep doing things the same way. Silver's willingness to tap into technology shows a league that isn't afraid to evolve — especially when its best players' futures are on the line.
With a little help from the "almighty" Computers, maybe the Association can put an end to this ugly trend.
Related: ESPN analyst says Ace Bailey was hoping to avoid Utah at all costs: "This was not one of his preferred destinations"
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 26, 2025, where it first appeared.
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