Fans love to talk about injuries. And with today’s technology players can recover quicker than ever.

But what almost no one talks about is what those injuries actually do to the body over time.

The photo above has gone extremely viral over the last few days. Former No. 2 overall pick Jabari Parker’s knee showed that sports injuries sometimes do last a lifetime.

After years of injuries... Parker’s knee now tells the entire story of his career.

Parker entered the NBA in 2014 as one of the most hyped prospects in the entire draft. The Milwaukee Bucks selected him with the second overall pick and the expectation was simple... he was supposed to become a franchise star.

But just 25 games into his rookie season, everything changed.

In December of 2014, Parker tore the ACL in his left knee. His rookie season ended immediately.

February 2017.

Same knee.

Another torn ACL.

Two ACL tears in the same joint before Parker even turned 22 years old. That’s the moment his career trajectory completely changed.

When most people hear “ACL tear”, they think of a ligament injury that eventually heals and everything goes back to normal.

But the reality is much more complicated than that.

When the ACL tears, doctors usually have to completely reconstruct the ligament using tissue from another part of the body. During surgery they often place screws into the bone to hold the new ligament in place while it heals.

Over time the knee recovers... but it rarely looks exactly the same again.

Multiple surgeries can leave thick scar tissue around the joint. Months of rehab can also change how the muscles in the leg develop over time.

That’s why Parker’s knee today looks so different from what you would normally see on a professional athlete.

It’s essentially a physical record of years of surgeries, rehab, and trauma to the joint.

Recovering from one ACL tear is already one of the toughest injuries in sports.

Recovering from two in the same knee is incredibly rare at the highest level of basketball.

Players have to rebuild almost everything... strength, explosiveness, stability, and maybe most importantly, confidence in the knee again.

Even after all that, many athletes say the joint never truly feels the same.

Yet Parker still managed to continue playing professional basketball after both injuries.

Today he plays overseas with Joventut Badalona in Spain. His NBA career never quite reached the superstar level many expected when he was drafted.

But the fact that he’s still playing high-level basketball after everything his knee has been through is impressive on its own.

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