Nowadays, the topic of load management is a tricky one among fans, players, coaches, and league administrators alike. These days, it's all about getting to the playoffs healthy, and teams, as a result, are being more cautious than ever. For the Los Angeles Clippers, this has been true for the past half-decade, as they've been looking for ways to keep Kawhi Leonard fresh for the postseason after seeing an untimely injury dash their championship hopes over and over again.
However, there might be a negative side to the load management boom; some players, according to Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue, don't even want to play at all, preferring instead to cash in an easy paycheck all the way from the bench.
“When I was coming up, guys wanted to play more minutes, you always cried about not playing minutes. Now guys cry about playing too many minutes,” Lue said in a guest appearance on Shannon Sharpe's podcast, “Club Shay Shay”.
“When I was coming up, guys wanted to play more minutes, you cried about not playing minutes. Now guys cry about playing.”
– Ty Lue 👀
(via @ClubShayShay)pic.twitter.com/G6zo09THj6
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) August 29, 2025
It's not quite clear who Lue is pertaining to. But the Clippers coach is ruing the culture shift regarding players' workload. He suggests that some of the lethargy that has come to define regular-season basketball over the past few seasons, not to mention the constant injury woes every team appears to be going through every season, can be chalked up to a lack of practice time.
“When I first got to the league, you play a game, the next day, you got an hour and a half, two-hour practice. Taped. You're live. Contact, body on body, getting better every single day. Now, game, practice the next day is gonna be a walkthrough. You ain't gonna have no contact, guys are not gonna go full speed. 30-40 minutes. [They're like], ‘We just had a game last night.' It's a big difference,” Lue added.
Clippers try to find balance between load management and winning
It was last season when Lue and the Clippers seemed as though they had finally found the proper balance when it comes to load management. Alas, it did not amount to much. Even with Leonard being healthy in the playoffs and dropping a historic performance in Game 2, the Clippers ended up losing in the first round to the Denver Nuggets.
For the upcoming season, Lue may have to put those strong opinions of his to the side; he'll be coaching the oldest team in NBA history after the Clippers acquired the likes of Chris Paul and Bradley Beal to add to the aging core led by Leonard and James Harden, after all. (LA has eight players over the age of 30.)
