Adam Silver 'devastated' for Kyrie Irving, league focused on reducing injuries

The season-ending injury to Kyrie Irving has hit the NBA hard.

With excitement for the NBA Finals at a fever pitch, ticket sales through the roof, and television ratings booming, the news that the Cleveland Cavaliers point guard has a fractured left kneecap is incredibly disappointing. Not only does it stand to make the Golden State Warriors heavy favorites moving forward, it also threatens the quality of the rest of the series, which tipped off with a phenomenal Game 1 on Thursday.

The impact of Irving's absence hasn't gone unnoticed at the league office, with fellow Duke alum and NBA commissioner Adam Silver expressing his disappointment to USA TODAY Sports on Friday:

First of all, from a personal standpoint, I've become good friends with Kyrie over the years. I traveled to South Africa with him and his Dad a year and a half ago, and I'm also a Duke grad (like Irving). So I'm devastated for him personally. You never like to see injuries, especially at this level, and right in the middle of our highest-profile series. Whether or not there's more we can do to prevent injuries is something we're very focused on. It's always been part of the game - injuries happen, and they happen to high-profile players, they happen to guys who aren't so high profile. Whether there's better training practices, whether through better analytics, we can get a sense of what precise movements lead to injuries, whether it's a function of the schedule are all things that we're (looking at).

The notion that the league is looking into ways to prevent injuries is nothing new. Silver has been incredibly open about his desire to lessen the physical toll on players, either by lengthening the season to spread out games and travel or leveraging new technology to better understand the toll on players.

Silver said that he and the NBPA are both focused on the issue of player maintenance, and expressed hope that it can be a league-wide, 30-team effort to figure out optimal workloads, time off, and more.

That's a noble endeavor, but in the meantime, the Cavaliers are down four of their opening night starters, three of them to injury. LeBron James is LeBron James, but it's tough not to feel like the finals have been short-changed some by medical misfortune.