Strangest NBA injury of all time: 'Tree Bites Man'
Sports Illustrated's Ian Thomsen posted a fantastic article on Friday about NBA injuries, which included his All-Injured Teams, great investigative work into The Raptor mascot's long list of bumps and bruises, and this classic NBA injury story:
Danny Ainge was the victim of the weirdest injury that I can remember in the NBA. In a 1983 first-round playoff game with Atlanta, Ainge tried to tackle Tree Rollins. Ainge shrieked in pain from the ensuing tangled pile of bodies.
"We got into a little scuffle out on the court by the foul line and he almost bit my finger off,'' Ainge said. "He bit it all the way through. I had to get two stitches.''
He raised his right hand to reveal the scar on his middle finger.
"Usually, you don't put stitches on a human bite,'' he said. "But just to keep everything in there together, they had to put a couple of stitches in there.''
Did he realize that someone was biting him?
"Oh, yeah, I knew it was happening,'' he said. "Oh, yeah.''
The next day, the Boston Herald published one of the great headlines: "Tree Bites Man.''
It's a shame Tree didn't bite Larry Bird, too.
