The Achilles Heal

The data behind how NBA players recover following Achilles injuries

Over the past two months, Achilles has demanded far too much attention. If it were the summer of 2004, that’d be acceptable thanks to the historical* war epic Troy, which features Brad Pitt as Achilles, but alas, it is not 20 years ago. No, Achilles has been back in the news because of how he seems to snap at the most inopportune and devastating time for your basketball team.

The 2025 NBA playoffs saw three recent or current All-NBA players, Damian Lillard, Jayson Tatum, and Tyrese Haliburton, rupture, tear, snap, or obliterate their Achilles. It’s a list that doesn’t even include 2021-22 All-Star Dejounte Murray, who tore his Achilles in January. In the coincidence of the young century, all four players wear number zero, and all four are likely to play zero games in 2025-26. Unsurprisingly, this spate of Achilles injuries on the game’s biggest stage to well-known players has drawn far more scrutiny than the Achilles tears of James Wiseman, Isaiah Jackson, DaRon Holmes, and Dru Smith earlier in the season.

Regardless of one’s fame, an Achilles tendon tear remains the most devastating injury an NBA player can suffer. From the grotesque image of witnessing a calf unnaturally flicker as the snapped Achilles unfurls like a renegade rubber band to the months-long rehab, the injury is rightfully considered career-altering. However, saying a devastating injury is career-altering isn’t all that helpful. Missing an entire season over a contract dispute is career-altering as well. What really matters is to what degree?

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Using Pro Sports Transactions dot com, I was able to search for every single injury transaction due to an Achilles injury. From there, I sorted out which ones were Achilles tears and which were run-of-the-mill Achilles injuries that didn’t require surgery. I am not suggesting that this is an exhaustive list, but I captured 55 Achilles tears starting with Elgin Baylor in 1970 and ending with Tyrese Haliburton in 2025. From there, I documented relevant production and biographical data.

In order to keep the data manageable and consistent from a positional standpoint, I focused on age, minutes per game, games played, win shares (WS), win shares per 48 minutes (WS/48), box plus minus (BPM), offensive BPM (OBPM), value over a replacement player (VORP), and usage (USG%). I recorded each player’s marks in these categories (when applicable, as some players were rookies and others never played again) in the season of their injury, the season after their return, the three seasons before their injury, and the three seasons after their return from injury. The primary focus of the analysis will be on the difference in players’ production between the three seasons before and after their Achilles injury, thereby expanding the sample size.

As a note, I did not include Klay Thompson in the sample because he suffered his Achilles tear after missing an entire season following an ACL injury. And the seven players who suffered Achilles injuries last season are not part of the sample. This also doesn’t include James Wiseman because, apparently, the Pacers never made an injury transaction designation.

The Basics

Before we get into the player side of the equation, here is a breakdown of Achilles tears over the years. The sample is so small and likely incomplete that I wouldn’t read too much into it, but Achilles tears do appear to be more common than they were in the past. However, it’s unclear if 2025, which isn’t over yet, is just an outlier bad year or the start of a concerning trend.

Last year, I detailed how the physical demands of the modern NBA are far more intense than they were in the past, which is almost certainly a contributing factor in Achilles injuries. That being said, due to the G-League and two-way contracts, far more players play in any given NBA season than in the past. For instance, 569 players featured in an NBA game in 2024-25, compared to 492 in 2014-15 and 407 in 1994-95. If the sample of players increases enough, the raw number of injuries will rise as well. Interestingly, before 2024, the NBA was riding a pretty hot streak of Achilles health following a murderous 2018. Clearly, the league needs to monitor what is causing these injuries and if they can be prevented, but making sweeping accusations just because three well-known players suffered the injury in the playoffs would be foolish.

Outside of the long-term trend, when an Achilles tear occurs is perhaps even more important from a sports physio perspective. This is a month-by-month breakdown of when Achilles tears have occurred. Once again, I want to stress this isn’t exhaustive, but it appears players are most vulnerable at the very beginning of the season when they’re ramping up, a few months into the season, and then marginally more susceptible in the playoffs, once you factor in fewer games being played.

Now, onto the player performance side of the equation. On average, players suffered Achilles tears during their age-28 season. The population, overall, was better than a deep bench player, but, unsurprisingly, Achilles injuries don’t afflict better players, just players good enough to play semi-meaningful minutes.

*The top row is the average, and the bottom row is the median

To contextualize the WS/48, BPM, and USG%, a WS/48 of .080 and .085 would have ranked around 120th last season, a BPM of -0.4 would have ranked 110th, while a BPM of 0.4 would have tied for 88th, and a USG% of 22% would have ranked 72nd. Once again, these aren’t stars, just players who are good enough to run their bodies into the danger zone.

While looking at how a player performed in the season of their injury is a relevant data point, capturing the three seasons before their injury provides a better baseline of performance, and the three subsequent seasons paint a more complete picture of how they fared post-injury.

Before Celtic and Pacer fans lament their poor fortune, the age brackets are an incredibly relevant data point. On average, NBA players have torn their Achilles right as they pass their absolute regular season peak (age 25/26 through 27/28 seasons) and return right as they hit their decline phase (age 29/30 through age 31/32 seasons). Even without injury, you would expect players to perform worse, and discerning how much of the decline is age-related and/or injury-related is a topic for another day. However, there is a real decline, and outside of players who suffered Achilles injuries at the very beginning of their careers, almost every single player saw a drop in their WS/48 and BPM upon returning.

Another relevant data point is that ten out of the 47 players in the sample never played another NBA minute, and another 18 failed to reach 100 games played; however, Brandon Clarke should defy that. If you remove Clarke, then 27 out of the 47 players (57.4%) in the sample failed to play another 100 NBA games. Once again, age is a massive factor.

Using 2024-25 as an example, the number of players aged 28 and older is substantially less than the number of players in their early and mid-20s. Regardless of injury, you’d expect a significant number of players in their age-28 season to see their careers end within a season or two. While looking at the average of the entire sample has its merits, it’s clear that age is a huge factor.

Getting Granular

Naturally, I wanted to see how the age at injury affected the results. It stands to reason that younger players are more resilient to major injuries, but is that substantiated by the data?

While the age brackets appear arbitrary, they break down along the aging curve. Players 24 and under are in their pre-prime years, 25 to 29 is the prime of a career, 30 to 32 is the late-prime, and 32 and older is decidedly post-prime. As you can see, young players are more resilient to Achilles injuries, but that’s largely a product of them having by far the lowest baseline. Unfortunately, for all other players, the outlook is incredibly arduous.

Players who suffer Achilles tears post-30 have had a particularly difficult time recapturing their prior form, and even for players in their prime, they’re hardly the same player, even if statistically, they produce at the highest level upon return. Now, all of these are very small samples, and medical technology and know-how have continued to improve, but the expectation should be for a player to significantly worse upon returning from an Achilles surgery.

The final bit of data surgery I want to go over is grouping players by their talent level. I decided to use a player’s 3-season BPM average prior to injury as a guide. I broke players into five groupings: stars (greater than a 3.0 BPM), good players (2.9 to 1 BPM), starers (0.9 to -1 BPM), bench (-1.1 to -2.5 BPM), and scrubs ( less than -2.6 BPM).

Okay, so this is depressing. Star-level players basically come back as solid starters, good players come back as bench players, and everyone else comes back as a scrub. Obviously, the age at the time of injury is a factor here, but as with all the data, you never fully recover from an Achilles tear. Kevin Durant is held up as a shining example, but he went from an average of 8.8 BPM over his three seasons before his injury to 7.2 in the three after. Considering his age and the fact that he remained an excellent player well into his 30s, his recovery is one of the few positive stories, but the vast majority are basketball tragedies.

What About Tatum, Haliburton, and Lillard?

The real question, that I assume many want answered, is what does this mean for Jayson Tatum, Tyrese Haliburton, and Damian Lillard, and, just because I have friends who are Pelicans fans, Dejounte Murray? Well, it’s definitely not good. I’d go as far as to say that there’s a real chance Lillard and Murray are done as effective NBA players, and it wouldn’t surprise me, although it would break my heart, if Tatum and Haliburton are done as even true All-Star caliber players. But let’s throw their numbers into a spreadsheet and do some maths to see just what type of story we’re looking at.

*Next 3 Seasons Based on Difference (Age and Status) is weighed 50/50

Based on the data I have, Dejounte Murray appears to be the most likely to become a significantly negative contributor. Lillard’s rosier projection is largely based on his substantially higher baseline, but it doesn’t expect him to even hit 100 games played. Tatum and Haliburton look likely to remain positive contributors, but won’t be the All-NBA mainstays they’ve performed like over the past three seasons, but All-Star consideration seems possible, if not likely.

Now, these “projections” are just based on some simple data collection that spans over five decades. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if they all beat these projections due to improvements in medical science. However, I think it’s fair to assume that they won’t come back as the players we remember. This is particularly sad for Haliburton and Tatum, who were building unassailable Hall of Fame-level careers. Tatum is almost certainly a lock on the strength of his four consecutive First Team All-NBA finishes from 2022 to 2025, but Haliburton, who has two Third Team All-NBA finishes, still has some work to do.

While the Pelicans and Bucks have functionally moved on from Lillard and Murray, the Celtics and Pacers’ fates are still directly fashioned to Tatum and Haliburton. If they cannot approach their previous levels of production, the past two Eastern Conference Champions look poised to settle in as solid playoff teams, but will be far from contenders. Hopefully, these two will beat the odds, but the odds are the odds for a reason.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.