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San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich recently gave his two cents on the concept of “load management” and dismissed it is a normal thing around the NBA, per Michael Pina of SB Nation.
Gregg Popovich: “Load management is whatever you want load management to be…Everyone does it to some degree.”
— Michael Pina (@MichaelVPina) November 23, 2019
Load management has been a hot topic around the NBA nowadays.
As much as this concept only started to get popular now, Popovich and the Spurs have actually been doing this for a long time now. The Spurs often sat Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili even during their prime years to ease their load throughout the 82-game grind of the regular season.
San Antonio once infamously declared Duncan out due to old age. Likewise, the league, under previous commissioner David Stern, once gave the Spurs a hefty fine for resting four key players in a highly-anticipated match-up against the Miami Heat back in 2012.
Fast-forward to 2019, the practice has certainly gained traction with teams opting to give their guys – mostly the star players – some rest days throughout the course of the regular season.
The Toronto Raptors saw this pay huge dividends after Kawhi Leonard, who played just 60 games last season under the load management program, led them to their first NBA championship last year.
The Clippers, which signed Leonard this off-season, have likewise placed Leonard under the same program, sitting him in back-to-back situations, after seeing the Raptors success last season.
Definitely, teams are smarter nowadays with respect to managing their players' bodies as they prepare for the most important games of the calendar year, the postseason. Nevertheless, the Spurs and Pop have the distinct honor of being the pioneers of this concept.
