Understanding Bam Adebayo’s Thumb Injury
- Post By: Jeff Stotts
- Date:
- Category: Uncategorized
As the first quarter of the NBA season ends, injury trends across the league will start to become clearer. The Thunder, Kings, and Timberwolves have minimized their total games lost while the Lakers, Clippers, and Magic have lost the most games to injury or illness. Another Florida team, the Miami Heat, will now add a considerable total to their injury ledger after it was announced Tuesday that center Bam Adebayo will be out indefinitely after undergoing surgery to address an injured thumb.
Adebayo tore the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his right thumb, an injury covered multiple times on InStreetClothes.com. The thumb is comprised of three bones, the first metacarpal of the hand and the proximal and distal phalanges., The proximal phalanx and first metacarpal form the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint at the base of the thumb. Two ligaments, the UCL and the radial collateral ligament (RCL), stabilize the MCP joint, limiting excessive motion with gripping or pinching. The UCL serves as the primary stabilizer and sits on the inside of the thumb, near the webbing of the thumb and pointer finger. The RCL attaches on the opposite side and helps prevent excessive side-to-side movement.
The UCL is commonly injured in sports generally when a player gets hung up on something like a base in baseball or in an opponent’s jersey. RCL injuries occur less frequently as the specific force needed to place stress on the ligament is less likely to occur. MLB players including Mike Trout and Bryce Harper have torn a UCL in their thumb while former NFL quarterbacks Drew Brees and Jay Cutler suffered similar injuries during their playing careers. In the NBA, the list of players to undergo surgery to repair a torn UCL includes point guard Chris Paul and Marcus Smart and Hall-of-Famer Shaquille O’Neal. The average number of missed games for in-season UCL repairs in the NBA is 26 games or roughly seven weeks. Paul and Smart made the quickest recoveries, missing 39 days (14 games) and 44 days (15 games), respectively. These numbers lineup with the early estimated timeline for Adebayo that suggest he could be back in six weeks.
Surgery to fix a torn UCL has improved in recent years and may cut down on recovery time and minimize any potential issues with performance. ESPN’s Stephania Bell detailed one such advancement, internal brace augmentation, back in 2017 when Trout went under the knife. Adebayo is slated to undergo surgery in the coming days with more details to emerge on the exact approach taken. The Heat will now turn to veteran Dewayne Dedmon to replace Adebayo in the frontcourt as they look to remain among the elite in a suddenly crowded Eastern Conference.