NBA to introduce tech that will limit player injuries

The NBA continues to be the biggest and most lucrative league in the world when it comes to financials. It is also one of the most advanced when it comes to technological integrations.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has recently pointed to the NBA’s focus on reducing and outright eliminating player injuries with the help of technology.

Speaking at the Launchpad technology event, Silver said, “There’s nothing more frustrating, obviously than injuries and … having series decided by players not being on the floor,” Silver said. “And there’s nothing more frustrating also for our fans than having players, frankly, that aren’t injured, following some programs scheduled for rest. … Figuring out a way to create that right, healthy balance is what we’re all about at the league.”

At the event, Silver announced that player availability will be the primary focus in the next year’s program. The NBA Commissioner aims at preventing soft tissue injuries and developing healthy habits in basketball.

Currently, sensors known as force plates are used to measure load and force beared by a recovering athlete. The measurement from these sensors give insight into the recovery process of NBA athletes.

Nextiles, a tech company has come up with a fabric that can sense different forms of load and force exerted by an athlete. They hope technology like this could reduce soft tissue injuries among Basketball players in the future.

Nextile CEO, George Sun while speaking with Basketball journalist Ben Dowsett said, “The world we’re trying to merge is the semiconductor industry with soft goods, namely fabrics. In the semiconductor world, you have a lot of conductive and metallic pieces that are hard and inflexible. What we do is, we take those metallic conductive materials — copper, aluminium, stainless steel and silver — and instead, we put them onto threads.”

The Warriors clinched the NBA Final 2022 trophy with Nikola Jokic as the MVP. The 2022/23 season of the NBA starts on October 19th with the 2022/23 draft already taken place on June 23rd.