Anthony Edwards has been sensational in his 77 minutes across three games this season. He’s scored 77 points, which means he’s scoring a point every minute he’s on the court on ludicrous shooting percentages of 51.9% from the field, 47.4% from three, and 82.4% from the free-throw line.
Edwards’ rebounding seems more aggressive, and his defense seems more emphatic. His improved on-court vision has resulted in only six turnovers, averaging one every 12:50 minutes of gameplay, which is significantly better than last season’s rate of one every 11:32 minutes.
That’s why his injury on Sunday night stings more than it usually would. At some point over the first 3:08 of the game, Edwards felt tightness in his right hamstring. He would stride off the court, and Bones Hyland checked in for him. Edwards headed back to the locker room. Before the halftime break, Edwards appeared on the sidelines in street clothes, with an official update of “will not return.”
On Monday afternoon, Shams Charania broke the news that Edwards is suspected to miss two weeks due to a right hamstring strain.
Edwards’ injury pauses his hot start to the season. While the initial report states he will miss two weeks, it’s important to understand why hamstring injuries can linger and become among the most frustrating in sports.
The hamstring is composed of three long, thick bands of muscle located on the back of the thigh. It is composed of the biceps femoris longus, semitendinosus, and semimembranosus. (In case you want to go to nursing school, yes, you need to know which is which and how to spell it.)
The three muscles connect the Femur to the knee joint and the lower leg, while also strengthening the hip joint. The three muscles, working in unison, help a person lift their leg, flex and rotate their hip, and support their knees in maintaining balance and strength. To put it bluntly, it’s imperative to walk.
People typically suffer hamstring injuries when starting and stopping while running or overstretching the muscle. Therefore, it’s one of the most common injuries in sports. In some cases, the athlete may feel a popping or snapping sensation, which is sometimes accompanied by intense pain.
In other instances, a person could feel spasms or tightness as the muscles attempt to compensate for the injury. Sometimes, they will feel a “lump” in the back of the thigh. However, in most cases, pain and swelling are the most common. While therapists can usually feel the injury in the muscle, and the side effects of weakness can suggest a strain is present, an MRI is the only way to identify and grade it.
When a person strains their hamstring, it generally refers to a partial or complete tear of one of these three muscles. Strains, which are commonly used in place of the word tear, are graded in severity from one to three.
A Grade 1 tear is minor, generally between 1.0% and 25% through the muscle. A Grade 2 suggests a moderate tear, generally from 26 and 99.99% of the muscle. Finally, doctors use a Grade 3 designation for a complete tear. While the explanation seems simple enough, there is significant ambiguity around strains. There is no exact amount of muscle that must be torn to result in a grade. Instead, it depends on what the radiologist or orthopedic provider deems appropriate for grading, which can lead to significant ambiguity.
Thankfully, the treatment for a Grade 1 or Grade 2 strain is often the same and follows the acronym RICE.
Rest is considered the most important. Resting the affected area is the most impactful way to promote healing with any joint or muscle strain. For example, think of a muscle as a rubber band. It stretches and is elastic at full strength. But once that rubber band gets a tear in it, every stretch of that rubber band becomes a gamble, because the tear can become bigger each time.
A hamstring strain works the same way. However, the key difference between the two is that the body constantly heals the hamstring tear, whereas the rubber band gets worse or stays the same. Every time the muscle stretches, it will likely tear. However, if you rest it enough, your body will be able to heal faster than the activity will make it worse.
I is for ice, which has a dual purpose. It decreases inflammation and swelling by slowing the internal bleeding from the torn muscles. The ice helps clot the ruptured microvessels in a tear. The other purpose is to alleviate the pain. Hamstring strains can be quite painful, especially if they are re-injured.
C is next and stands for compression, which works in collaboration with the ice. As the Ice stops the vessels from bleeding, the compression compresses the fluids back into the bloodstream, further alleviating swelling.
E stands for elevate. Elevating the affected muscle, joint, and limb allows gravity to help return the fluid that is causing the inflammation back to the core of the body and the heart, so it can be recirculated.
That’s the go-to treatment for most hamstring strains, and they are the guidelines the team will ask Edwards to follow. Try to stay off the right leg as much as possible, ice and wrap the thigh, and elevate the leg when at rest. However, because Edwards is a professional athlete, he will likely engage in physical therapy and stretching routines. He will also likely use TENS therapy, which involves applying electrodes to stimulate muscle contraction and relaxation.
This is where the frustration with hamstring injuries comes in, and why they can sometimes linger for months. Often, with Grade 1 or less severe Grade 2 strains, the pain and weakness will fade before the injury fully heals. That can tempt athletes to come back too soon from this injury and re-injure the muscles, because until the tears are completely healed, the risk of re-injury is extremely high.
The Minnesota Timberwolves will re-evaluate Edwards over the coming weeks. Given his importance to the team, he will likely undergo regular MRIs to ensure he doesn’t return too soon.
Edwards set lofty goals this season: to win an MVP and to win a championship. In his first 77 minutes, it would appear he’s well on his way to accomplishing those goals. However, the hamstring injury could undermine his expectations for the season, especially if he returns too soon.