Sam Presti Criticizes NBA For Being Too ‘Defensive’, Not ‘Rational’ About Injuries

Before this 2024-25 season, you might have not cared too much about what Sam Presti had to say, but now that he’s led the Thunder to their first-ever title, I think we should listen. The OKC general manager publicly criticized the NBA for pushing back on the amount of injuries players suffered this campaign. 

The Oklahoma City executive said it’s “almost insulting” how the league argues there’s no correlation between the amount of matches and the frequency in which athletes are getting hurt. Presti talked to reporters this Monday ahead of free agency, just a week after his team won the championship.

Game 7 of the NBA Finals witnessed Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton’s Achilles tear, as he became the third player to suffer an injury as serious as this during the playoffs alone. Bucks’ Damian Lillard and Celtics’ Jayson Tatum also fell to the same fate, joining a group of seven who tore their Achilles over the season.

“I think the one thing we have to do is get away from the defensive nature of trying to convince people, players and teams that there’s no connection between the loads and the injuries,” Sam shared at the start of the week. “I think it’s — we’re kind of bordering on a level of like, it’s almost insulting.”

It seemed pretty clear that his messages were directed at NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who recently told ESPN that he doesn’t believe the NBA campaigns are that long, and didn’t see a relationship between the amount of matches and the player’s health.

“When we look back at the last 10 years, the majority of the Achilles injuries have happened before the All-Star break,” the league executive expressed last week. “So, it’s not clear it’s the number of games.”

The commissioner then added: “And as you know, modern NBA players, even when they’re not playing games sometimes in the summer they’re working harder than they are during the season when they’re playing three games a week.”

The OKC general manager also commented on the league’s 65-game threshold to qualify for the end-of-season awards, plus the addition of the in-season tournament. “It’s not a matter of players not wanting to play or being soft or anything like that,” he shared. “But I don’t think we should be putting our head in the sand and acting as if there’s no correlation.”