The article discusses the phenomenon of Lakers fans feeling that opposing players frequently return from injury to play against their team. Head coach JJ Redick investigated this belief, finding that about 86% of payroll players had been available against the Lakers this year, the highest in the league. However, this data does not directly confirm that more players return from injury specifically against the Lakers. To quantify this, a detailed analysis of player injury returns would be necessary, suggesting that fans may be facing confirmation bias in their beliefs.
“We had our analytics group look into it,” Redick said. “I don't know that it's been updated. I haven't looked at it since Dame [Lillard] missed the Milwaukee game. But I think it's like 86% of payroll has been available [against] us this year, which is, by far, No. 1 in the league.”
Having players available against your team is not the same as players returning against your team. It's pretty close! And, really, it'd be a pretty exhaustive study to look at every instance of a player returning from injury and analyzing if it happened more against the Lakers than anyone else.
To perhaps further back up Redick's point, though, there are other similar stats that back up the notion that players play against the Lakers.”
Early this season, I started keeping track of when players returned from injury against the Lakers. While there was about a month span from December until January where I stopped tracking...
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