Spurs Look to Further Injury Prevention with Latest Hire

Sure, there are a lot of jokes to be made about the age of the San Antonio Spurs’ three biggest stars. But the fact of the matter is that a very big part of the Spurs’ recent success — including the 2013/14 NBA Championship — has to do with Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobli, and Tony Parker. Duncan is 38, Ginobili is 37. And while Tony Parker comes in at a spry 32 years of age, all three players’ ages don’t necessarily reflect how much wear and tear basketball has brought on their bodies. While perhaps not on par with a Willie Nelson or Tom Waits, San Antonio’s Big Three have bodies that are perhaps a little older than their actual ages project — at least in basketball terms. The Spurs have been in the playoffs every year since 1997, Duncan’s first season. They’ve gone all the way to the Finals six times. That’s a lot of playoff games to tack onto the normal 82-game schedule, not to mention the international play that all three have been a part of. That much basketball can certainly take its toll on a player. The Spurs know this, and are hoping to enhance their elder players’ health and performance with a new hire they recently announced.

According to MySanAntonio.com, the Spurs have brought on Xavi Schelling, a PhD in Physical Activity, to serve as their Applied Sports Scientist. NBA teams are already able to do a good amount of player tracking with their SportsVu system, and Schelling’s hiring should play nicely into that as San Antonio is notorious for keeping very close eyes on their players’ minutes and usage throughout the NBA season. While details haven’t been announced (are they ever with the Spurs?), it isn’t hard to envision San Antonio going beyond the simple task of tracking game minutes for a player to looking at how they’re being used, how far they’ve run, how long the’ve spent getting banged around in the post, etc. and cross-referencing that with biometric data. This can not only aid in game strategy, but at looking at how hard eight minutes is on Tim Duncan as opposed to Manu Ginobili.

Windows for success are usually small in sports, though the Spurs have managed to keep theirs open for a remarkably long time. Pairing traditional physical training with quantifiable numbers and statistics could help them squeeze the very best out of an aging team that has been dominant in recent years. Players like Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili aren’t going to be around forever in San Antonio, but it looks like the Spurs are trying to make sure those three spend as many productive minutes on the court as possible, while spending the least amount of time in the trainer’s room.

(Header photo via Katie Haugland)