Characteristics and incidence of injuries in male Korean professional basketball players in pre- and regular seasons of practice and competitions

Basketball players are prone to injury. Advanced sporting nations have systematic injury monitoring systems for managing player’s health. The epidemiology of injuries occurring during practice and competitions were investigated for the male professional basketball players (n = 60) in South Korea. The data were prospectively collected which covered the pre- and regular seasons of 2019–2020, 2020–2021 and 2021–2022. The calculated injury rate ratios (IRRs) assessed the injuries based on number of athletes involved in games and practice. The pre-season injury rate (IR) was ~1.6 times higher compared to the regular season IR (IRR = 1.55, 95% CI (confidence interval) = 1.11–2.17, p = 0.008). The competition IR was ~4.3 times higher compared to the practice IR (IRR = 4.33, 95% CI = 3.90–6.04, p < 0.001). Ankle was the most frequently injured wherein lateral ankle sprains were highly prevalent. Practice injuries were mostly of non-contact nature, while those of competition were contact related (p < 0.001). In conclusion, overuse injuries such as muscle strains/spasms and inflammatory conditions were prevalent in practice, whereas acute injuries like sprains and contusions occurred in competitions. These findings demonstrated that injury characteristics of Korean Basketball League players varied by season and event type, which emphasized the significance of season- and event-specific injury prevention programs.