NBA Injury Expert Discusses Mark Williams' Lingering Back Issue

For the second straight year, the Charlotte Hornets have been riddled with injuries which has severely impacted there chances of winning and on some nights, just their ability to be competitive. 

Second-year big man Mark Williams has been out with a "back contusion" since early December, missing 34 consecutive games. Prior to sustaining the injury, Williams was averaging 12.7 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks per game. In six of his last eleven outings, he posted a double-double - one of which featured a 24-rebound game against the Washington Wizards.

Nick Richards has played well in spurts in his place, but the expanded role isn't ideal and it affects the Hornets' frontcourt depth. 

Both head coach Steve Clifford and now former/interim GM Mitch Kupchak have each admitted that Williams isn't necessarily close to a return to action. However, they do feel confident that he will return to 100%.

With limited information about Williams' status, we turned to NBA injury expert Jeff Stotts of InStreetClothes.com to get his thoughts on what may be going on.

"This has been a weird one for me. I've been following this one pretty closely and you're right - it was back soreness then it was a contusion. He was doubtful for a couple games and looked like, okay, maybe he was starting to make progression and then he was just out and he's been out for a while. Contusion doesn't tell us much. It could be a soft tissue contusion. It could be a bone contusion. With the back, one of the things we focus on is this pain spasm cycle where some underlying issue whether it's a bone injury, muscle injury, a ligament issue causes the back to be painful which causes your back to spasm. The spasm happens and you can get prolonged inflammation in there which causes it to hurt which causes more spasm which causes it to hurt and you just get stuck in the pain spasm cycle. You've got to break that cycle and then treat the underlying cause. What is causing the pain and spasm cycle? You can yo-yo in and out of that sometimes. You can make progress and you're feeling good and then it gets irritated again and you go back into that cycle and then you got to spend some time breaking that cycle again. It can be a pretty vicious cycle. It's hard to tell if this is muscle, bone, or anything else because we don't really know. It's not overly surprising to see a back issue linger, but to have it called a back contusion and continue to linger suggests maybe there's something more going there."

Back surgery is something players try to avoid at all costs. But at some point in the process, it may become inevitable. Stotts explains why he believes surgery hasn't happened yet.

"With any injury, the last thing you want to do is surgery. That needs to be the last option because you can't undo that once it's been done. Once you go in there for whatever reason, whether it's back, knee, ankle, whatever... you can't undo that. It needs to be the last resort in terms of approach. Part of it is because the back bears so much weight, especially for big guys. We're talking about a ton of weight, gravity pulling us down through our lower back and then, oh, by the way, we're going to ask you to jump and explode upward a lot. It's just a lot of repetitive motion, so that's just an area that is constantly loaded. The back is a very complex thing, particularly for athletes which is why it's hard to just completely dismiss he's just a back contusion. There's probably something more going on and hopefully we'll get some more insight down the road and hopefully it's positive news."

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