The NBA Injury Report Is Already a CVS Receipt

The NBA season is barely a week old, and the daily injury report already looks like a CVS receipt. If you are trying to figure out who is actually playing basketball on October 25, you might want to grab a comfortable chair and a magnifying glass.

The Los Angeles Clippers are the main event of this medical drama. They are rolling into their Sunday night matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder without Bradley Beal, Brandon Ingram, and Max Strus. That is not a rest day. That is an entire offensive system sitting in street clothes while the 2-0 Thunder wait to run them off the floor.

"Underdog NBA reported the massive list of early-season absences."

Over in the Eastern Conference, the Indiana Pacers are dealing with a casualty list that makes you wonder what happened at practice. Ben Sheppard is out with a meniscus issue, Johnny Furphy is down with an ACL injury, and TJ McConnell is sidelined by a hamstring. Aaron Nesmith is probable, but Indiana is going to need to pull fans from the stands to fill out the rotation against the Brooklyn Nets.

Then you have the Los Angeles Lakers and Utah Jazz, who tip off at 5:00 PM. The 2-0 Lakers are missing rookie Cameron Carr, who is dealing with an oblique issue after missing the end of the preseason with a contusion. Meanwhile, the Jazz are without starting center Jusuf Nurkic, leaving a massive hole in the middle of the paint.

Trying to handicap these games right now is less about analyzing pick-and-roll coverage and more about checking who still has two working hamstrings. When a team is missing three primary scorers like the Clippers are, the point spread stops being a math equation and turns into a wild guess.

We are going to see a lot of deep-bench guys getting unexpected minutes tonight. If you are tuning in to watch the stars, you might want to adjust your expectations, because right now the most active guys in the league are the athletic trainers.