Steve Kerr says Adam Silver’s condemnation of NBA teams resting players was ‘the right thing to do’

DALLAS — One day after the league office sent a memo to the 30 NBA team owners warning “significant penalties” for resting stars during national TV games, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr commended the note by calling it “smart” and “the right thing to do.”

Kerr’s Warriors have been in the middle of the resting players controversy after sitting Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala two Saturdays ago on national television. Golden State did not hide the fact that it was resting those players, and a week later, the Cleveland Cavaliers did the same thing on primetime against the Los Angeles Clippers — sitting LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love in a blowout.

“This is something that every organization needs to partner together with the league and our broadcasting partners and figure out what’s best for everybody,” Kerr said. “We all have the same interests at heart, which is why we need to do what’s best for the league. But there are great arguments on every side.”

There is certainly a prerogative for coaches and teams to rest their top players when advantageous in order to keep them fresh through an 82-game season.

“It’s shown to be so this past week,” Kerr said. “You can see our guys are fresher, their legs. So what can we all do, together? And I think that’s where Adam is really good in terms of taking a lot of opinions and finding solutions. This is not a right or wrong issue. It’s what can we do to best serve the league, best serve the player’s health.

“Is there a compromise? We’re already working on that by extending the season next year by 7-10 days. I think that’s going to be very helpful and I think the broadcast partners and the league can pay closer attention to the schedule when it comes out next year as they put that together.”

Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle — who is a member of the league’s competition committee — also gave a thoughtful statement about the issue. He said the cutback on the preseason to reduce back-to-backs even further is a positive step. However, resting players is an important advantage coaches sometimes feel they must take with players throughout the season.

“When you coach in the league for a while, and you get a real feel for players and their levels of energy, their levels of wear and tear, both physically and emotionally,” Carlisle said. “There are just times where you know that a night of rest strategically and the space during a span of games is going to make a big difference in the long run.

“We need to educate our fans and our media about all that goes into player’s preparations for a game, particularly a high level player. When we used to sit Jason Kidd the last couple years here, it always made a huge difference because he puts so much into mental preparation and preparing to compete. We encouraged him to just stay away from the arena because we just knew that it was just going to be a real opportunity for him to clear his head and getting anywhere near the competition was going to be almost like suiting up and playing.

“It’s just a story that needs to be told. People need to understand that in the present structure of the schedule, there are just times when it really is the right thing to do.”

Carlisle acknowledged that the other side of the issue were real concerns, too, however. The key is that both sides are working together to fix this issue.

Kerr added that the league can do its part by being more cognizant of its national TV schedule.

“I do think this can be remedied though — maybe not remedied — but I think it can be dramatically helped with what the league is already working on for next year and the consideration of geographics [sic.] when it comes to the schedule,” Kerr said. “Our schedule two weeks ago, and I talked about it quite a bit, the way we bounced around from city to city didn’t make any geographical sense. It obviously was done for national TV purposes. I think we can work on that. I think we can still find great matchups and work on scheduling where — especially marquee games — where you’re getting teams more rest in those circumstances.”

Kerr pointed out that it’s not only the top teams that rest players, and that it has been happening all season, by referencing a game Dallas played against Golden State where they sat five players.