An ankle tells you about a shooter before the injury report does

Lower body knocks change a jump shot in ways that appear in shot charts weeks before anyone is listed as questionable.

A jump shot is a chain that starts at the floor. Ankle, knee, hip, then the arms, which get all the coaching attention and contribute the least power. Break a link low down and the shot changes shape long before anybody in the building calls it an injury.

The specific tell is the deep three. Shooting from twenty-seven feet requires force that has to come from the legs, and a player nursing an ankle or a sore knee will unconsciously stop generating it. He does not miss more from out there at first. He simply stops taking those shots, drifts a foot or two closer, and his attempt distribution shifts in a way that looks like a coaching decision and is actually a body making a decision for him.

The second tell is the corner. Corner threes are usually catch-and-shoot, taken with feet set, which is the least demanding version of the shot. A player whose legs are compromised will keep shooting those at his usual rate while everything off the dribble collapses. If you see a shooter's spot-up numbers hold and his pull-up numbers fall off a cliff over three weeks, you are looking at a lower body problem, and possibly nobody has said so publicly.

The third is the free throw line, which is the cleanest signal available because the shot is identical every time. A change in free throw percentage over a month, in a player with a long track record, is one of the few measurements in this sport with almost no noise from defence, pace or teammates.

Why does any of this matter beyond curiosity? Because rotation decisions get made on availability rather than capacity. A player who is on the floor is treated as a full contributor, and a coach who cannot see the difference between available and effective will keep running plays that require a version of him that is not present.

Teams have this data internally and use it. Broadcasts do not, and neither do most of the arguments people have about a player being finished at thirty-one.

He might be finished. Or his left ankle might be, and those have different recovery timelines.