Four years ago, the NBA dropped a $250,000 fine on the San Antonio Spurs for resting four healthy players in a marquee national TV game against the Miami Heat. David Stern argued that while rotational decisions were under the purview of coaches, the commissioner could issue fines if those decisions violated league policy “against resting players contrary to the best interests of the NBA.”
The NBA needs to draw the line with teams resting stars for national TV games
NBA teams are abusing their discretion to rest healthy players for marquee games. The hammer is coming.
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In short, the league office gave leeway to coaches to rest players as long as they didn’t go too far. If coaches were found to be abusing their power, the NBA would hit them with a fine. It’s a bit arbitrary and subjective, but isn’t everything? You know something like this falls under the category of “contrary to the best interests of the NBA” when you see it.
The Warriors resting Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green for a marquee ABC Saturday night game against the Spurs is contrary to the best interests of the NBA. The Cavaliers resting LeBron James and Kyrie Irving for the very next week’s marquee ABC Saturday night game against the Clippers is contrary to the best interests of the NBA.
Assuming the NBA hasn’t quietly changed its policy behind the scenes, these were two perfect examples of when league sanctions should come down on teams for abusing the rest policy.
The difference, of course, is that Stern is no longer at the head of the table. Adam Silver has shown a gentler touch with the teams he oversees. While his office dishes out plenty of penalties, they tend to be for more concrete, and less ethereal crimes.
This isn’t a universal truth: Silver, not Stern, managed to expel an odious franchise owner out of the NBA based on said franchise owner’s odiousness. But on the whole, most would agree that Silver is less prone to dropping the hammer on arbitrary or subjective issues. After two straight weeks of ruined Saturday night specials, his patience may be wearing thin.
Cleveland GM David Griffin defended his decision to rest LeBron as being in the best interests for Cavaliers fans. Griffin may be responsible for the Cavaliers’ hopes and dreams, but he certainly understands the NBA takes a wider view. The league office made sure he understood that on Saturday, as Griffin told reporters an NBA official called to express displeasure after the team announced the DNPs.
Silver can’t punish the Cavaliers because he didn’t punish the Warriors. The DNP-Rest ploy is so common these days that the league can’t issue a universal ban.
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But teams aren’t going to like the inevitable solution Silver offers.
The NBA is not shrinking its season from 82 games. The league just inked a massive broadcast deal that comes with a certain number of games on national TV. Many individual teams have inked sizable local broadcast deals and several teams own or partially own the networks that rely on those games to sell ads. The season is not shrinking, no matter how much sense it makes from a medical and quality-of-the-game perspective.
Starting next year, the league will shrink preseason to move the season’s tip-off up a week and reduce the number of back-to-backs. (Back-to-backs are almost always involved when stars draw DNP-Rests.) Silver has committed to working to find ways to lighten the load. He’s been a partner, not a dictator, on this issue. Protecting marquee matchups by not subjecting the participants to back-to-backs would help.
At some point, however, he’s going to draw a line, and we may have reached that point this weekend. Silver is not Stern, but like Stern, Silver has an obligation to protect the best interest of the NBA. When you have highly promoted games on primetime network television, you need stars to participate if they are healthy. If teams are unwilling to ensure that will happen, the league needs to enforce its policy.
I am sympathetic to the plight of GMs and coaches trying to keep their players’ health managed over a long season. I am also sympathetic to fans who miss out on seeing visiting stars for games that aren’t on national TV. But the league is well within its rights to mandate that the practice of stars receiving DNP-Rests for marquee games comes to an end.
Silver’s NBA has given teams leeway to make these decisions. The teams have abused that latitude. It’s time for the hammer to bring everyone back in line.
