Osteoarthritis (OA) as the main degenerative disease of articular cartilage in joints is accompanied by structural and compositional changes in the tissue. Degeneration is a consequence of a reduction of the amount of macromolecules, the so-called proteoglycans, and of a corresponding increase in water content, both leading to structural weakening of cartilage. NMR investigations of cartilage generally address only the relaxation properties of water. In this study, two-dimensional (T₁-T₂) measurements of bovine articular cartilage samples were carried out for different stages of hydration, complemented by molecular exchange with D₂O and treatment by trypsin which simulates degeneration by OA. Two signal components were identified in all measurements, characterized by very different T₂ which suggests liquid-like and solid-like dynamics. These measurements allow the quantification of separate hydrogen components and their assignment to defined physical pools which had been discussed repeatedly in the literature, i.e. bulk-like water and a combination of protein hydrogens and strongly bound water. The first determination of ²H relaxation dispersion in comparison to ¹H dispersion suggests intramolecular interactions as the dominating source for the pronounced magnetic field dependence of the longitudinal relaxation time T₁.