The Dumbest NBA Injuries

Orlando Magic forward Aaron Gordon recently underwent jaw surgery to repair an injury he reportedly sustained while roughhousing with his brother Drew, who played with the Philadelphia 76ers last year. Nobody really seems to know exactly what happened, but one thing is for sure: that’s a really dumb way to get injured.

It’s not the dumbest way an NBA player has ever been hurt though, as the following list proves. Here’s a look at some of the most ridiculous injuries in recent league history:

#5 – Derrick Rose falls asleep with an apple knife. Rose had been eating an apple in bed, cutting off chunks with a sharp knife like a real man, when his fatigue got the better of him and he settled in for a long stretch of R&R. A bit later, he reached over to grab a bottle of water and completely sliced his arm open, requiring several stitches. He tried to laugh it off, but it was a pretty nasty cut. And a completely ridiculous injury.

#4 – Latrell Sprewell swings and misses. One magical night, when Sprewell was hosting a party on his yacht, one guest vomited and didn’t quite make it to the edge of the boat in time to sully the open water rather than the yacht floor. This infuriated Sprewell, who took a swing at the guy and missed, connecting with the wall instead and seriously injuring his hand. He failed to report it to the Knicks, and they fined him a quarter of a million dollars for the cover-up. That’s quite a financial hit for a guy that’s got kids to feed.

#3 – Charles Barkley burns the corneas off his eyes at an Eric Clapton concert. Back in 1994, Barkley missed the first game of the season for the Phoenix Suns following an incident where he burned a layer off of his corneas by exposing them to body lotion at a Clapton concert. He accidentally rubbed the stuff into his eyes during the show, which is what irritated them and ultimately put him out of commission. It sort of gives a whole new meaning to the band name “Cream.”

#2 – B.J. Tyler ices his way out of the NBA. After being picked up by the Toronto Raptors in the 1995 expansion draft, Tyler at some point fell asleep with ice on his knee, and that allegedly ruined it significantly enough to end his career. The severe cold murdered his quickness and he was forced to retire. Apparently that’s physically possible.

#1 – Lionel Simmons gets tendinitis from Nintendo. As a rookie for the Sacramento Kings back in 1991, Simmons got his hands on the hottest new thing in gaming: a Nintendo Game Boy, the first comprehensive handheld gaming system that allowed users to play video games on the run. Simmons played his so much that he ended up getting tendinitis in his wrist and forearm. It was bad enough to force him out of a handful of games and into the pantheon of the dumbest injuries in league history.

Honorable Mention:

Monta Ellis crashes his moped. While terribly efficient and undeniably fun to drive, motorized bicycles are dangerous enough to cause serious injury to franchise players who drive them poorly. Ellis tore a ligament in his knee during a low-speed moped incident in 2008, causing him to miss the entire 2008-09 season. At least he signed his big contract before the injury

Vladimir Radmanovic experiences snowboarding misfortune. Despite the fact that he wasn’t playing basketball during All-Star Weekend in 2007, Radmanovic, then a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, somehow managed to separate his shoulder. He of course lied about how it happened at the time, covering up the true story, which was that he wiped out snowboarding. That was a clear violation of his contract, but L.A. punished him by trading him to Charlotte rather than void his deal, which probably was the superior punishment anyway.

Brad Miller cuts his finger doing dishes. On the same day that Miller was named Western Conference Player of the Week, he went home and did the dishes, only to cut his right index finger badly enough to require nine stitches. Not quite as stupid as some others on the list, but a good way to kill the momentum he’d built playing out of his mind that season.

Eddy Curry sprains his ankle during a walk-through. There’s not much else to say here other than it did, in fact, actually happen. Not a full-on practice; a walk-through. Even better, there was another instance in which Curry popped a physioball during a separate practice and injured his wrist in the fall. It wasn’t a serious incident, but it very likely was a hilarious one.

Greg Oden stands up. The first of Greg Oden’s nasty NBA injuries was a knee issue that required microfracture surgery to heal just ahead of his rookie season, and it happened as he was standing up from a couch. Something just popped, and that was that. His gentle rise that fateful day most likely cost the poor guy his career.

Andrew Bynum tweaks his knee bowling. Back when Andrew Bynum was “Philadelphia 76ers center Andrew Bynum,” he decided it would be a good idea to spend an evening bowling despite the fact that he was still rehabilitating his knee. It went poorly for him though, and his re-injury kept him from ever actually wearing a Sixers jersey in a game. No word on what his bowling score was.

Are there more dumb injuries not mentioned here? Add them into the comments or keep the conversation going on Twitter. That is, after all, where this conversation started, and there’s no better time for these kinds of fun articles than the offseason!