The only real available solution to stop NBA teams from resting players

After ESPN blasted the NBA for allowing its teams to rest their stars, especially during nationally-televised games, the league office acted immediately by sending a memo to all 30 teams. The memo was indeed controversial in nature as the tone was drastic and sounded aggressive.

However, it is hard to imagine teams will strictly follow the orders imposed by the league as their intentions are to protect their players for the long run in the playoffs. In a piece by Dieter Kurtenbach of Fox Sports, he cited the only solution he sees for the resting fiasco.

He talked about extending the regular season to limit the back-to-back sets teams play in, which causes a majority of the ‘DNP – Rest' decisions. Kurtenbach also gave valid points on the possible months that the season could theoretically run while not intruding and contending with the other pro sports leagues for ratings as the league already has a solid fanbase.

“The NBA already knows the most direct solution to their problem — they’ve worked hard to eliminate stretches of four games in five nights and they’re reportedly planning on starting the 2017-18 regular season as many as 10 days earlier than this campaign. But a week-and-a-half isn’t even close to enough time.”

“The most effective way eliminate back-to-backs — and in turn, the rest epidemic — is to add a month (or more) to the NBA regular season.”

“Start the campaign at the beginning of October. What’s the harm? The league is already going up against the baseball playoffs and the NFL, and the preseason doesn’t need to be more than two games.”

This summer will be a very busy one for Adam Silver and company as they will have a lot to look into. With the issue becoming “extremely significant”, they might be forced to start the season early and finish a couple of weeks later than usual. If not, they will need to come up with a very creative way to make teams agree with their proposal. Either way, it's going to be a major decision that affects the tv networks, teams, players, coaches and even fans.