Let’s take a closer look at Deandre Ayton’s injury history during his NBA career with the Suns and Blazers.
The Lakers signed center DeAndre Ayton this offseason, who will be the surefire starter for a side desperate to fill their hole at center since acquiring Luka Dončić.
In the recent past, the team has been hit hard by injuries to newly acquired players. Kendrick Nunn missed the entire season with a knee bone bruise and Gabe Vincent missed nearly an entire season dealing with a meniscus injury. Also, Christian Wood was unable to return this past season prior to being released, AND Jarred Vanderbilt missed over a calendar year dealing with foot injuries (just to name a few!).
Let’s take a closer look at Ayton’s durability by deep diving into his injury history and what that may mean for his availability. First, here are his injuries and games missed thus far (from most recent to oldest):
One general thing to note on examining player injury histories before we dig deeper into Ayton’s is that, in today’s NBA, player workload is understood and monitored more than ever with the pace and demands on players higher than its ever been.
That’s even more the case for bigs because they’re often asked to switch onto smaller players, navigate space and fight some of their natural instincts. This leads to a lot of wear and tear on players with absences and smaller injuries that are being managed throughout the absences.
Now to the main event.
Ankle injury
The first thing that I’m looking for are yellow flags — major injuries with extended and repeated absences. The former can indicate more significant injuries and both types can dent players’ fitness levels, which then increases injury risk when they do come back, potentially leading to vicious injury cycles.
You can see that ankle injuries plagued Ayton towards the end of his rookie season and the second half of his sophomore season, including multiple 10+ day absences. Ankle injuries often lead to clusters of multiple occurrences, so seeing that doesn’t surprise me. The key is whether the player can recover and mitigate future risk?
In Ayton’s case, it looks like he has done just that. He’s had a handful of instances after that, but all those absences were five days or less and he went nearly two years without an issue.
Knee injury
The next extended absence came in December 2024 with a knee injury. He first missed 10 days, returned for 12 days, and then missed three weeks. If I were a betting man, I’d wager these absences are a continuation of the same injury. Importantly, like his ankle injuries, he seems to have recovered well with it not mentioned again on his injury report.
Muscle injuries
Next, I’m looking for muscular injuries and the response to that. Ayton hasn’t suffered many of these, which is a very positive thing, with only a groin strain in March ‘23 that didn’t recur and calf injuries during the second half of last season.
The initial calf injury looks to be very mild as he only missed two days, but then he missed two months from February to April with a calf strain. These may be connected and two months is a long time. However, based on digging, it sounds more like the Trailblazers were being conservative with his return to play, which bodes well for his injury recovery.
Overall, I wouldn’t say that anything really sticks out as a yellow flag or major concern here. There have been some reports out of Portland that the team questioned his motivation and he wasn’t the sharpest when it came to his health and fitness. If true, that would certainly be a yellow flag for me.
The Lakers are likely banking on Ayton’s motivation level — and therefore his commitment to his health and fitness — being at an all-time high. This very well could be his last chance to make an impact in the league and there’s no stage bigger than the Lakers alongside Luka and LeBron James to prove what you can do.
Durability will be critical for the Lakers since they will be relying heavily on him due to his skill set. He can plug so many holes for the team defensively and open up so much offensively with his combination of skill and vertical threat.
However, to do that, he has to stay on the court. Availability is the best ability, as the saying goes.
Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT has a doctorate in physical therapy from Northern Arizona University, and runs his own in-person and online sports medicine and performance business, 3CB Performance, in West LA and Valencia, CA and combines his movement expertise and fitness training background to rehab & train elite athletes.
He also works at a hospital — giving him experience with patients in the immediate healthcare setting and neurological patients (post stroke, post brain injury) — and has been practicing for over 5 years. Brar is additionally training at UCLA’s mindful awareness research center (MARC), has a background in youth basketball coaching and analyzes the Lakers from a medical and skills perspective for Silver Screen and Roll and on his own YouTube Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @3cbPerformance, on Instagram, and on his weekly Substack 3CB Quick HIITS.