Subscribe
Follow Us
The NBA has come under fire in recent seasons with some of its best players being rested during the league's most premiere showcase matchups during the regular season.
In an effort to limit these situations, the league has already been working on extending the calendar-length of the season — so that there will be less back-to-backs and sets with three games in four nights — and now it's also looking to implement some new rule changes.
According to USA TODAY Sports:
NBA owners are expected to approve player-resting rules in September designed to cut back on teams benching healthy players for regular-season games, a person with direct knowledge of the situation told USA TODAY Sports.
The rules are expected to be set in place for this coming season.
Commissioner Adam Silver has had this to say about the issue of players resting:
“There is an expectation among partners that teams are going to act in appropriate ways, (and) find, as I said, that right balance between resting on one hand and obligations to fans and partners on the other,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver told reporters at his April news conference.
“We are going into The Finals with a No. 1 seed in the West, No. 2 seed in the East, two teams that obviously had tremendous regular seasons, and every player is healthy,” Silver said in June. “So I don’t necessarily think the fan benefits by somehow if the league could require a player who wasn’t injured but was banged up to play in a game when the trainers felt that player needed rest. I don’t think the fan benefits by requiring that player to play and then that player getting injured.”
The issue is definitely a tricky one because the last thing the league wants is putting players at greater risk to get injured, thus hurting the NBA during the playoffs and hurting the competitive balance somehow.
In the past, teams like the Spurs have had fun with resting players with instances where a player like Tim Duncan sat out and the box score reading: “DNP — old.”
The league hasn't liked that and just wants to make sure it's giving fans the best product possible. It will be interesting to see exactly what changes are enacted and what effect it has on the league.
