MILWAUKEE — For more than a week, coach Jason Kidd has watched the injuries pile up, cringing. Not to his team — the Milwaukee Bucks’ regulars, headlined by MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo, have been largely healthy — but across the league, where leading players have been dropping like flies.

To Kidd, the NBA’s decision to lop off 10 days of training camp — a move made to stretch out the season, reduce the number of back-to-backs and eliminate four-games-in-five-nights situations, with an eye toward limiting the number of nationally televised games in which teams rest players — has something to do with it.

“We went extremely hard because of the shortened training camp,” Kidd said. “We tried to get guys in shape. That’s one of the big things with a shortened camp. There’s a chance of not being in basketball shape, and you see a lot of injuries, a lot of guys out.”

Kidd’s sentiments have been echoed by many coaches across the league. Shortened camps have left less time for conditioning, and poor conditioning has been viewed by coaches as a contributing factor to many of the injuries. “People say 10 days doesn’t matter,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It does.” There are exceptions — conditioning didn’t dislocate Gordon Hayward’s ankle or cause Chris Paul to bump knees with Mario Chalmers in the preseason — but the number of early-season sprains, strains and bruises has been alarming.

The disconnect on this issue seems to involve the condition of players when they came into camp. Times have changed — most players follow rigorous offseason conditioning programs and play all summer. It’s fair to say today’s players come to camp in better shape than ever before. At the same time, coaches note that a high level of activity does not get you in NBA regular-season shape. As one assistant coach told Yahoo Sports, “Have you seen a summer pickup game?”

For coaches, there was a degree of ignorance on this issue. Kidd, one of the most outspoken critics of the shortened camp, once advocated for it. And there was little pushback from the coaches when the idea was originally proposed. Still, after experiencing it, some, like Kidd, would like to see a return to the older, full-length camps in the future.

“I’d rather have the time before the season to prep, to get guys ready, so the product can stay on the floor,” Kidd said. “Right now, you have the product sitting. I don’t know where else they can go from here — maybe having two games a week and then one week of training camp. It’s got to be reviewed. People are coming to see the product and the product is in suits. And that is unfortunate.”

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How do you see the Magic season going? Are 40 wins realistic?

— Christina Flores

Break up the Magic! Orlando — basketball’s island of misfit toys last season — has been sharp. It has a pair of wins over probable playoff teams — Miami and Cleveland — and the latter was a 21-point road drubbing without Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton. Cleveland whittled the Magic lead to seven in the third. Last season, the Magic might have folded, as D.J. Augustin noted. This year, they recovered and held on.

So, is 3-1 a sign of things to come? I’d caution against getting too giddy. The shortened training camp has led to some weird early-season numbers (the Nets and the Warriors have identical 3-2 records, through Wednesday), and roster continuity, however flawed, has probably helped the Magic get off to a fast start. The problems that plagued the team last season — a lack of 3-point shooting, a glut of non-shooters in the frontcourt, an inconsistent Mario Hezonja — remain.

But the Magic are well-coached — Frank Vogel continues to be one of the most underrated in the league — and the addition of Jonathan Simmons has added a versatile wing player with Spurs DNA to the mix. Forty wins might be a stretch, but 35 and a chance to fight for one of the woebegone Eastern Conference’s final playoff spots into March is possible.

View photos Gordon Hayward isn’t likely to return this season. (AP) More

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