The NBA Basketball season has passed the halfway point and the long grueling season that the players endure every year is starting to take a toll around the league. This is usually the point in the season where players are constantly getting banged up and this year is no different. Over the past few days there have been a ton of notable injuries and Monday night Orlando Magic’s Jameer Nelson became another victim of the growing trend around the league. Not to mention superstar and New Orleans Hornet’s guard Chris Paul also suffers a crucial injury. Take a look as we break down the recent outbreak of key injuries around the league and give up-dates of their status and which injuries will be most important to their teams.

On Monday night, Orlando Magic point guard Jameer Nelson stole the ball and was fouled and hit the floor and rolled over awkwardly. Nelson hopped up appearing to be in agonizing pain clutching his right shoulder. Latest reports have confirmed that Nelson has a torn right labrum in his shoulder that would definitely put a halt in immediate playing time. Nelson is unsure whether the injury will be season ending as he goes through the process of deciding to take season ending surgery now or try and wait to the end of the season. One thing is for sure that the Magic took a huge blow in amidst of this unfortunate incident. Nelson has been a key component to the Orlando scoring attack this season averaging 17 points per game. Without Nelson, the Magic will have a tough time being the same team considering how much of a threat Nelson posed leading the Magic down the court. Behind back Anthony Johnson the Magic do not have any point guards that will likely step in and be effective meaning Orlando will be facing some challenges in the near future. As for Nelson, he was having one of the best years of his career and now that likely has the possibility of being over. A torn right labrum means that there the shoulder joint becomes very unstable while depending on the case can be quite painful. The extinct of Nelson’s injury will likely be clearer in the coming days.

Another big time injury is that of New Orleans Hornets Chris Paul. Actually the injury is not that big at all as Paul has suffered a minor groin pull and will likely need a few days to get back to 100%. Paul is listed as day to day and his injury will likely be very insignificant in terms of how it affects the Hornets and last year’s MVP candidate to get back healthy. On Saturday night, the Lakers were hit by the injury plague sweeping the league. Center Andrew Bynum went down tearing an MCL which is a medial collateral ligament. The drastic injury is rather serious as Bynum will miss at least 8-12 weeks as the knee attempts to heal. However, MCL injuries are quite peculiar as on many occasions it takes the victim much longer to gain the confidence to go all out outside of the recovery time. The injury definitely was not fortunate for the Lakers, but it will likely not slow down one of the more popular teams in the world. Los Angeles has dealt with injury issues in the past and as long as they have Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol on the floor they are going to be tough to beat.

Other Injury Updates…

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Delonte West is still recovering from a broken wrist suffered back in mid January. West is schedule to have his cast removed later this week and will start getting practice time over the next few days. West is likely looking at another week or more to completely get the strength and confidence back into his wrist and will join the Cavs lineup when the time comes. As far as the Cavaliers they have been pretty good without him as they extended their incredible home record to 23 last night, but with West back in the line-up it definitely will not hurt.

Carlos Boozer has been out for some time now with a left knee injury. Boozer had surgery on the knee back in November and his missed 34 straight games. However, the rehabilitation process has been going well and Boozer should return to play in the next 3 weeks. The Jazz have been really hit hard by injuries this season after finishing with a 54-28 record last year that lead to a conference semi-finals meeting with the Lakers. Andrei Kirilenko suffered an ankle injury that required surgery a little more than a week ago and will miss another 3 weeks as expected. The Jazz have really had a disappointing year and if something big does not change they will likely have too many obstacles to overcome.

Tracy McGrady has been battling a sprained left ankle for the Houston Rockets, but is expected to return to play any day.

Chicago Bull’s Drew Gooden has missed 7 straight games battling a groin injury and is expected to miss a few more as he is still not completely healed.

On the midst of all the exciting action that has been going on in college basketball over the last few weeks it has drawn attention away from the NBA. However, last night Chris Paul nearly reached an achievement that can not go unnoticed. The New Orleans Hornets got a big victory over the Philadelphia 76ers last night 101-86 and closed to only one game behind the San Antonio Spurs in the Southwest Division Standings. Hornets’ star point guard and last year’s MVP candidate Chris Paul nearly made history by earning a rare quadruple-double in his magnificent performance against the 76ers on Monday night.

Chris Paul has been extraordinary over the last two seasons running the New Orleans offense from the guard position. Outside of his tremendous ability to score at anytime and post big number Paul gains a lot of recognition from his ability to lift the other players around him. Paul leads the NBA this season with 11 assist and sports a double-double average with 21 points as well per game. However, on Monday night Chris Paul elevated his game even more. The playmaker out of Wake Forest got off to a fast start and showed how valuable he is on every end of the court. Paul racked up 15 assist by the end of the night along, 10 rebounds, 7 steals, and 27 points barely missing a rare quadruple double. It was quite apparent that Paul was running the show and to even have the quadruple double talk discussed is quite an accomplishment in itself.

For Chris Paul, the game marked his 3^rd triple double of the month and also the second time this month where he has accumulated 7 steals. Paul is known for his ability to swipe the ball on defense and of course has led the league for some time in the assist category. However, when Paul put them all together in what turned out to be a brilliantly played game. Paul came up nearly 3 steals away from achieving the quadruple-double. While it may sound far fetched to ask for 3 more steals, Paul performance proved to be one of the better games all around in NBA history not to mention how many fantasy players cashed in huge points last night off his feat.

So how big is the seemingly impossible quadruple double? Actually if Chris Paul could have got the 3 more steals last night, it would have only been the 5^th time in NBA History a player reached the quadruple double. 4 players have reached the quadruple double throughout the history of the NBA and only 1 player has accomplished the milestone including the steals category by the way of Alvin Robertson of the Spurs back in 1986. The other 3 players reached the accomplishment through earning more than 10 in the blocks category. Paul would have been the first player to reach this feat in the last 15 years considering the last quadruple double came in 1994 by David Robinson another Spurs player. The first ever player to reach the quadruple double was Chicago Bulls’ Nate Thurmond by in 1974 and the only other player to earn the accomplishment was NBA great Hakeem Olajuwon back in 1990.

While Paul’s performance will likely be forgotten in the next few games, it should gain some respect and marvel those NBA enthusiast that love rare accomplishments. Despite failing to actually get the quadruple double, Chris Paul deserves all the attention for getting near the feat in today’s NBA game that is usually conquered by players trying to score as many points as possible. However, Paul proves time and time again that he is a true team player that will do whatever it takes to get the win for his team. The little guy is fun to watch and so is the race in the Southwest between the Hornets and the Spurs. After a few days of wild College Basketball action seemingly drowned out the NBA play, Chris Paul delivers a big game and gets the attention back towards the NBA.