The National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) and the Next Gen Basketball Players Union (NBGPU) in partnership with GE HealthCare and MedStar Health today announced the completion of the data collection phase of a longitudinal NBA pilot study G League Players. The research study was designed to collect data that could help promote player health and wellness and reduce injuries.
The largest assessment of training and game load on athletic performance over a full professional basketball season, the study tracked the musculoskeletal and joint health of NBA G League players from four teams during the 2023-24 campaign. The upcoming study results aim to improve understanding and help inform future best practices for play, training and rehabilitation with a focus on the structure and function of the knee joint – particularly the patellar tendon.
The study conducted prospective, longitudinal assessments of athletes by combining the daily use of wearable technologies to provide consistent measurements of game and training load with serial biomechanical, kinematic, and force-producing assessments. Advanced imaging techniques used in the study included ultrasound shear elastography, MRI equipped with deep learning reconstruction and image-based muscle analysis by Springbok Analytics. These evaluations began during G League training camp in early November and were completed at the end of the G League season in March.
Ultrasound shear wave elastography is an advanced, quantitative method for analyzing functional changes in the patellar tendon, and when used to measure tissue stiffness in the patellar tendon, the method has the potential to identify risk factors or markers of tendinopathy onset. To date, this will be the first time the method has been used in a research study on elite professional basketball players.
Executive quotes
Erin Angel, PhD, VP, Research & Scientific Affairs, GE Healthcare
“GE HealthCare is excited to partner with the NBA and participating G League players on this groundbreaking study to improve the way players’ musculoskeletal health is analyzed and measured, with the hope of finding innovations in how which athletes can deal with musculoskeletal and joint health problems. As a leader and innovator in medical technology, we see this imaging study as important to learning more about the human body and how it responds to physical activity, with the potential to extend the learning to care for professional, amateur, and non-professional athletes. . -the sports world beyond it.’
Wiemi Douoguih, MD, Medical Director, MedStar Sports Medicine. Chairman of the NBA Research Committee. Study Co-Principal Investigator
“For professional athletes, injuries can affect the success of their careers, so it has long been one of the goals of the NBA Research Committee to promote player health and wellness in the interest of reducing injuries and This research lays a foundation to help us better understand the balance between play, training and rest so players can stay as healthy as possible, coaches and teams can have their best season, and fans to see their favorite stars play the game.”
Scott Magargee, CEO and Co-Founder, Springbok Analytics;
“We are pleased to continue our ongoing collaboration with the NBA on this study. The NBA, NBPA and GE HealthCare are at the forefront of better understanding athlete health and performance, and we are proud that our muscle technology analysis – improving personalized training, injuries knowledge and return to decision-making plays an important role.’
Asheesh Bedi, MD, Chief Medical Officer, National Basketball Players Association. Study Co-Principal Investigator
“We are excited to announce this first-of-its-kind study on workload. This has been an area of great interest, and there is not yet a comprehensive data set for professional athletes to assess the impact of workload on musculoskeletal and joint health.” “The study is valuable in bringing together medical professionals and key scientific leaders to advance the health and wellness of our athletes. Their commitment underscores their passion for the long-term well-being of athletes at all levels.”
Study methodology and technology used
This study features GE HealthCare’s SIGNA™ Premier 3.0T wide-angle MR scanner with AIR capabilityTM Recon DL AI software for fast high-resolution imaging and specialized research TE T2 star sequences to identify structural and synthetic changes in the knee joint.
LOGIQ by GE HealthCareTM An E10s ultrasound with an ML4-20-D transducer was used to perform serial ultrasound elastography diagnostics on the knee (patellar tendon) of the participating players. The ML4-20-D detector uses XDclearTM transducer technology-?an innovative combination of advanced materials and acoustic design-? which provides high-quality images to support musculoskeletal assessment. The LOGIQ E10 series, equipped with advanced tools including 2D Shear Wave Elastography, enables the qualitative and quantitative assessment of tissue elasticity.
Springbok Analytics’ AI-based 3D muscle analysis was used to better understand the players’ muscle health. Springbok’s technology uses MRI image data to create a 3D model of individual muscles, revealing a more comprehensive view of musculoskeletal health by precisely quantifying metrics such as muscle volume, muscle asymmetry, fat infiltration, edema, as well as and tendon and bone morphology.
The work is the latest in MedStar Health’s portfolio of orthopedic and sports medicine research projects, which include studies with other professional leagues and federations on topics ranging from injury prevention, innovative surgical techniques and the implementation of new 3D printing technology.
