ArticleOrthopaedic journal of sports medicine2026
Achilles Tendon Rupture in the NBA: Return to Play, Performance Decline, and Temporal Trends (2000-2025).
Article in Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Achilles tendon rupture is a rare but potentially career-altering injury in elite basketball athletes. Contemporary data specific to National Basketball Association (NBA) players are limited, particularly regarding return-to-play (RTP) timing, functional outcomes, and long-term incidence trends in the modern high-pace era. Purpose: To evaluate RTP rates, time to return, postinjury performance changes, and temporal patterns of Achilles tendon rupture in NBA players over a 25-year period. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods: NBA players with a confirmed Achilles tendon rupture between the 2000-2001 and 2024-2025 seasons were identified through multisource verification, including team announcements, league injury reports, Basketball Reference records, NBA.com injury logs, and contemporaneous reporting from major sports media outlets. RTP was defined as participation in at least one official NBA regular season or postseason game after the index rupture. Season-level performance metrics were extracted for the final full preinjury season and the first full postreturn season. Paired pre- versus postinjury comparisons were performed, effect sizes were calculated using Cohen Results: A total of 22 NBA players sustained a confirmed Achilles rupture. Among athletes with adequate follow-up (n = 15), 13 players (86.7%) returned to NBA competition. The mean time to RTP was 10.8 ± 4.3 months. Significant declines were observed in minutes per game (-7.6 minutes; Conclusion: This study showed that most NBA players with adequate follow-up returned to professional play after Achilles tendon rupture, typically within approximately 11 months. However, reductions in playing time, scoring output, offensive efficiency, and starting role prevalence were common after return. Per-48-minute analyses suggested that scoring decline persisted even after accounting for reduced playing time, whereas several defensive and rebounding metrics were relatively preserved. Annual rupture incidence remained low overall, although a notable cluster was observed during the 2024-2025 season. These data may be helpful for counseling players regarding performance expectations and decision-making after Achilles tendon rupture in elite basketball players.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.