All told, NBA stars have already missed over 200 games this season due to injury or illness, doubling the total we saw at this point two years ago. The NBA’s official star designation in the league’s player participation policy stipulates that a star player is one who has made an All-Star or All-NBA team in any of the previous three seasons. This season, 45 players meet that criteria, which means that, on average, NBA stars have already been sidelined by about five games each. For a league fighting the image that star players aren’t playing enough, this season’s power outage is especially alarming. In 2023-24, with the first year of the midseason tournament seeming to motivate its biggest names to suit up, star players played 87.2% of its games by this juncture of the season (12 games in). Last season, it dipped to 82.6%. This season, the bottom has fallen out, with star participation falling to 67.6%.
This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: NBA stars have already missed over 200 games this season
