Last season, NBA commissioner Adam Silver faced heavy criticism for allowing teams to rest their best players for a multiple game stretch. This season, it’s all about to change.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has been under pressure on whether or not action will be taken towards the restless issue of teams resting their stars for multiple games during the season. This issue has become very common and has reached the tolerance limit.
Silver has come out with action and said he will fine teams and hand out punishments if they rest their players for highly viewed games during the regular season.
According to USA Today‘s Jeff Zillgitt, Silver expressed his view by saying, “Now, I’m hopeful we can accomplish much of our goals by better scheduling. The additional week I mentioned will make a huge difference in avoiding the four games out of five nights and reducing back-to-backs significantly.”
The issue of resting players is getting out of hand. When a team rests all of their star players for a regular season game, not only does that game become less competitive but it takes away from those fans who are watching back at home, and especially the fans who bought tickets to see those players. Fans buy tickets to see their favorite players on the court doing what they are paid to do — play basketball, not on the bench in warmups and suits. NBA players do deserve a handful of breaks away from games during the season but no fan deserves to not see their stars take an unexpected break from a game they paid to see.
If players want to take “rest” breaks, they should let the NBA and fans know a week or two weeks ahead of time. As far as “aggressive” fines towards teams who rest their stars, the fine amount should increase every time the same team rests without notice. This warning by the commissioner should limit the rest numbers and give fans the confidence to buy tickets to the games they want to see and get their money’s worth.
During the 2016-2017 season, many teams sat out their players in key matchups late in the season. Teams who are championship contenders like the Cleveland Cavaliers, Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs are the most popular teams when it comes to resting their players.
Resting players usually comes into play when playoffs are around the corner and the selective team has clinched their playoff spot. That was not the case last year, as teams were resting their stars as early as late February.
But it got out of hand the following month.
The Golden State Warriors were playing the San Antonio Spurs on March 11 in a nationally televised game — but with an unusual starting lineup. Coach Steve Kerr held out Steph Curry, Andre Iguodala, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson from the game due to rest.
A couple of days later, the Cavaliers took the Warriors approach and rested their stars in another nationally televised game against the Los Angeles Clippers. After the game, the Commissioner had some words about the topic at hand.
According to the Commissioner, resting is a big issue in the NBA and it needs to be stopped before the numbers rise up again for a consecutive season.