Kyrie Irving recently suffered an ankle sprain in game 4 of the Nets-Bucks series and will miss game 5. For further reporting see the following links (the ESPN link also has a video showing the injury mechanism):
https://www.si.com/nba/2021/06/13/kyrie-irving-ankle-injury-leaves-game-4
In the article “Ankle Sprains in the National Basketball Association, 2013-2014 Through 2016-2017” by Herzog et al. they take at the epidemiology of this injury in the NBA population. Ankle sprains were broken down to medial, lateral, and high based on the ligaments involved. Based on the video, Irving likely suffered a lateral ankle sprain from an inversion injury. Of the 796 ankle sprains reported on in the study, 638 were lateral and 189 occurred from landing on another player’s foot.
While most ankle sprains in this study did not require missed playing time, they were not able to report on the severity of the ankle sprain. However, of the players that did miss at least 1 game, the median number of missed games was 2 with the interquartile range of 1-4.
Another interesting data point from the article includes a single season risk of ankle sprain of 25.8%. Also, the incidence of ankle sprains was 41% higher in players with another ankle sprain within the last year.
