Respectfully, with the amount of jumping and running in basketball and the size and height of these guys there is way more stress on the joints than in hockey. Hockey players’ calves would outwork any other sport in the universe, and those guys can take a punch, but basketball is a more all-around athletic game. There’s a reason why hockey players can play until they’re almost 50, and it doesn’t have to do with the players being ‘tougher.’ If that were the case then baseball players would be done after a year and every NFL player would play 10+ years.