The 2018 NBA playoffs will be limited because of so many injuries

The concerning list of injured players keeps on growing and threatens to ruin the postseason.

Joel Embiid could potentially miss the first round of the playoffs after he was diagnosed with both a concussion and an orbital fracture on Thursday. His status adds onto a growing list of players that expanded even further after the Celtics announced Kyrie Irving would miss the rest of the season with knee surgery.

Embiid’s injury, along with the recent blow to Stephen Curry, reminds us just how cruel the injury bug has been to the NBA this season.

Injuries just haven’t stopped piling up

In the opening minutes of the first game of the season, Gordon Hayward gruesomely dislocated his ankle and fractured his tibia on national TV. The very next day, Jeremy Lin ruptured his patellar tendon.

Those set a dark undertone for the rest of the season, and the injuries never let up from then.

In total, 18 players have endured season-ending injuries or surgeries this season. Here they are, in no particular order:

Gordon Hayward: dislocated ankle, fractured tibia
Jeremy Lin: ruptured patella tendon
DeMarcus Cousins: torn Achilles
Kristaps Porzingis: torn ACL
Kyrie Irving: knee surgery
Andre Roberson: ruptured patella tendon
Mike Conley: season-ending foot surgery
Markelle Fultz: scapular dyskinesis in shooting shoulder
Patrick Beverley: season-ending knee surgery
Dion Waiters: ankle surgery
Avery Bradley: sports hernia, surgery
Kent Bazemore: knee bone bruise
Michael Carter-Williams: torn labrum in shoulder
Seth Curry: left leg stress fracture
Wesley Matthews: stress fracture in right leg
Ron Baker: dislocated shoulder, torn labrum
Brandon Knight: torn ACL
Thabo Sefolosha: MCL avulsion
Daniel Theis: torn meniscus

Those are just the season-ending injuries. Many players get hurt, only to work their way back to the court the same season.

Paul Millsap, for example, missed 44 games with an injury to his non-shooting wrist that required surgery. He’s since returned. So has Kevin Love, who fractured his hand in January and made his return to the wallowing Cavaliers in March.

Love and Millsap are just a couple of the players who have missed time on the floor this season. It’s near impossible to list every player who suffered an injury setback this season. Here are a few of the biggest names:

Kevin Love: fractured hand
Paul Millsap: non-shooting wrist injury and surgery
Reggie Jackson: Grade 3 ankle sprain
Nicolas Batum: Achilles injury
Blake Griffin: MCL sprain
Malcolm Brogdon: torn quadriceps tendon
Jimmy Butler: torn meniscus
Nikola Vucevic: fractured hand
Kawhi Leonard: quadriceps tendonitis
Rudy Gobert: sprained PCL, bruised tibia
John Wall: knee surgery
Lonzo Ball: Grade 2 MCL sprain
Marcus Smart: thumb
Stephen Curry: ankle injuries, Grade 2 MCL sprain
Danilo Gallinari: multiple injuries
Zach LaVine: missed beginning of season recovering from torn ACL
Hassan Whiteside: Left knee soreness
Kevin Durant: rib injury
Klay Thompson: thumb injury

Now, you can add Joel Embiid — concussion, orbital fracture — to that list.

Several of these are non-contact injuries, which have been on the rise in recent years. It makes one wonder why these are happening more often.

Even by recent standards, this has been an awful year for injuries

Rudy Gobert went down with a knee injury in mid-November and the Jazz spiraled. Then he returned on Jan. 19, and Utah has won 23 of its 29 games since. He’s been the difference maker we’ve expected him to be since he rejoined the lineup.

If only the Jazz had him the entire season.

Injuries have blasted the league this year, and once we thought they had finally slowed down, we were reminded just how cruel the world can be. Most teams jostling for playoff seeding out West between No. 4 and 8 are dealing with injuries to key players. The Celtics got hurt at the wrong time. So did the Warriors.

These injuries have only complicated a wild playoff picture out West while adding a layer of uncertainty in the East. The Spurs have no clue when, or if, Kawhi Leonard will return. Jimmy Butler might be out until the start of the playoffs, if the Wolves make it at all. We don’t know when Stephen Curry will be cleared to play, but if you believe Steve Kerr, it won’t be until after the first round of the playoffs. With Cousins injured, Anthony Davis has been on a one-man rampage to lead the Pelicans up the standings.

Meanwhile, the Cavaliers seem to be getting healthy at the right time. The 76ers are still waiting for Fultz to get his shooting rhythm back, if he will at all. Wall is back from knee surgery any moment, but how will he look when he does?

The only teams that have survived the war of attrition are the Rockets, Raptors, and Blazers — though even Houston dealt with the injury bug earlier this season and Portland is dealing with a nagging Damian Lillard ankle injury. It’s no surprise Houston and Toronto are in first place in their respective conferences, while Portland is overachieving and on target for third place.

Injuries have ravaged the league this season, and there’s no way of knowing whether they’ll finally come to an end. All we can hope for is the basketball gods show mercy on the league so we get the playoffs we deserve.

No matter which team you cheer for, no one likes it when a player gets hurt.