In the NBA, 2025 might go down as the year of the injured. Nikola Jokic joined that club at the end

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MIAMI (AP) — Indiana's Tyrese Haliburton is going to miss the entire season because of the torn Achilles he suffered in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Boston's Jayson Tatum — who hopes otherwise — might also miss the whole season after tearing his Achilles in the playoffs last spring. Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James and Oklahoma City's Jalen Williams have all missed big chunks of time this season with various injuries.

And now, Denver's Nikola Jokic is going to miss some time as well.

Nobody — not even those six All-NBA players from last season — is immune from the injury bug this season. The final day of 2025 is Wednesday and from an NBA health perspective, it might be time to say good riddance to these 12 months. Some of the league's biggest names have dealt with significant injury issues in this calendar year, and in many cases those woes are carrying over into 2026.

“It sucks,” Denver coach David Adelman said after Jokic was hurt.

He's not wrong.

Jokic got hurt Monday night in Miami, on a play with about three seconds left in the first half where he would have been better off just doing nothing. It seemed like he was trying to help a teammate defend a drive, got his foot stepped on in the process, hyperextended his left knee and now Nuggets fans — from Denver to Serbia and all points in between — are waiting to hear the team announce the severity of the injury. The best-case scenario probably would be for Jokic to miss only a few weeks, which could be the case if there's no serious structural damage.

But in the NBA, when the games basically come every other day on average, even missing just one month could mean missing 15 or more games.

It feels like a ton of guys are hurt. The NBA says the actual numbers say otherwise.

“The data we have so far this season is we have the lowest number of injuries in the last three years,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said this month. "I’ll stop there and say, regardless where the level of injuries stands versus prior years, of course the soft tissue injuries concern us. All injuries concern us, for that matter. The most frustrating issue right now, and the one that we have seemingly the least control over, is keeping star players on the floor.

“I think we have made progress," he added. "We’ve made adjustments in scheduling. We’ve made adjustments in the sharing of information among teams. We’ve made adjustments in the care of players.”

All that is true. This is also true: The NBA, even with all its power, can't control luck. Sometimes, a guy gets stepped on and his knee doesn't move the way it's supposed to move.

“Next man up,” Nuggets guard Jamal Murray said.

That is the phrase heard in probably every locker room in the world when a player gets injured, but the reality is there's no way the Nuggets can replace Jokic because three-time MVPs aren't exactly easy to find.

Here are only some of the big names, the award-candidate-type names, the All-Star-level names who missed a lot of games in 2025, whether it was this season or last or both: Philadelphia's Joel Embiid and Paul George, Dallas' Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis, San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama, Sacramento's Domantas Sabonis, Miami's Tyler Herro, the Los Angeles Clippers' Bradley Beal, Denver’s Aaron Gordon, Atlanta's Trae Young and New Orleans' Zion Williamson. And remember, they only get added to the roster of injured that already includes Haliburton, Tatum, James, Williams, Antetokounmpo and now Jokic.

“It’s frustrating," Silver said. “It’s frustrating for our teams. It’s frustrating for our fans. But I do think we have to be true to what the evidence is as opposed to saying there’s a narrative out there that injuries are up or injuries are up because of scheduling. They’re not. But we continue to slice and dice the data in every way we can, plus we look at qualitative information. People who have been around this game for a long time, what are they seeing? Are players training differently? Are there better techniques out there to keep players healthier?”

It'll be a great day when the NBA and other leagues can get some answers. Maybe some clues will come in 2026.

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