When professional sports meet science

“You might be f---ing smart but I f---ing hate you.”

This is part 3 in a series about preventing NBA injuries.

• Part 1: How your body is like a hydraulic press. 

• Part 2: What you can learn from wrecking your bike.

BY HENRY ABBOTT

I just saw a player on YouTube Eurostep through traffic and finish with a dunk. He’s in eighth grade. Next up for him: high school. After that, his odds aren’t good to keep playing. Google tells me only three percent of players progress to play in college. And less than one percent of those college players get to play in the NBA. There are entire U.S. states, with leagues and gyms full of killer prospects, that don’t have a single player in the league today (sorry, South Dakota). 

The NBA can sometimes feel something more than elite, almost magical. That’s a big part of what we love about it. By the time you get into the rarified air of the NBA, it’s tempting to believe everything applies differently here—even gravity.

That feeling can mess with your head a bit, though. I remember one of the first times I walked into …