Even Elite NBA Players Are Affected by Sports Specialization

The numbers increasingly show that sports specialization can lead to an increased risk of injury and should be shared with parents and coaches who continue to advocate sticking with one sport.

You’ve probably read the studies or heard the arguments. But new research shows that the effects of sports specialization go way beyond college ball.

“Should my kid be playing multiple sports or focusing on training for just one year-round?” That’s a question coaches likely hear from parents who dream of their kids getting a full ride to a college athletic program someday.

When it comes to sports specialization, the data shows that for some Division I college sports, specializing early is the standard. That’s especially true for women’s gymnastics, women’s and men’s soccer and women’s and men’s tennis.

However, the opposite is also commonplace: most athletes who participate in Division I football, women’s and men’s lacrosse, or running, for example, do not specialize:

Multisport Athletes by Sport

• 71 percent of DI men’s football

• 88 percent of DI men’s lacrosse

• 83 percent of DI women’s lacrosse

• 87 percent of DI female runners

• 91 percent of DI male runners

Where the debate on sports specialization does seem to provide more clarity is on the question of injuries. The research seems to show that specialization resulted in “increased risk of injury, but also contributed to burnout, such as loss of motivation, lack of enjoyment, stress and anxiety, and mood disturbances” among high school athletes.

But while sports careers may stop in high school for most people, for others they stretch on to college and even after that. There has been some debate about whether these results are also found after high school, but a recent study released in The American Journal of Sports Medicine sheds some light on the topic.  

Titled “The Effects of Playing Multiple High School Sports on National Basketball Association Players’ Propensity for Injury and Athletic Performance,” the study included 237 NBA players who were drafted in the first round between 2008 and 2015. The study found that a whopping 85 percent of players were single-sport athletes in high school and that these athletes were also more likely to experience a major injury than athletes who played multiple sports in high school. In fact, multisport athletes were 18 percent less likely to sustain a major injury in their NBA career (25 percent vs. 43 percent) and played in a greater percentage of total games (78.4 percent vs. 72.8 percent). More of them were also active in the league at the time of the study (94 percent vs. 81.1 percent).

The numbers increasingly show that sports specialization can lead to an increased risk of injury and should be shared with parents and coaches that continue to advocate sticking with one sport. While the debate will likely continue, playing multiple sports is not just about safety, it can also provide tremendous benefits in skills development. Make sure to consider these points when dealing with athletes and their families.

Read more:  How to manage being a multisport athlete