Former NBA commissioner David Stern voiced his disappointment with the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday for resting key starters in their April 12 regular season finale against the Chicago Bulls.
David Stern said ‘it’s inexcusable’ for the Nets to rest starters in season finale, and he’s right
The Nets rested starters in a game that influenced the East’s playoff picture. But it’s part of a greater trend posing an issue for the league office.
Photo by Grant Lamos IV/Getty Images for AWXII
The Nets, who finished the season with a league-worst 22-60 record, sat their three best starters in Jeremy Lin, Brook Lopez, and Trevor Booker — all healthy — against a Bulls team that needed just one win to secure playoff position as the Eastern Conference’s eighth seed.
Chicago handily won the season finale, 112-73, to jump ahead of a surging Miami Heat team that won 30 of its final 41 games. The Bulls did so against a resting Nets squad that won the same matchup, 107-106, with a full roster just four days earlier.
“I have no idea what was in the mind of the executives of the Brooklyn Nets — none — when they rested their starting players. If you’re playing in a game of consequence, that has an impact, which is as good as it gets (you should play your players),” Stern told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday on the NBA A to Z podcast. “Here we are, the Brooklyn Nets are out of the running. They have the lowest record in the sport. But they have an opportunity to weigh in on the final game with respect to Chicago. And they sit their starters? Really? It’s inexcusable in my view.”
Resting players has been the most controversial topic of the 2016-17 season.
A trend that San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich made popular years ago has taken over the league.
The Warriors rested Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala in a March 18 nationally televised game against the Spurs. Kevin Durant was already sidelined with a knee injury.
San Antonio, whose starters were legitimately hurt, bludgeoned Golden State by 22.
A week later, the Cleveland Cavaliers rested LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love in a March 18 nationally televised game against the Los Angeles Clippers. It was for a sensible reason: The Cavaliers were set to play two sets of back-to-backs on the road in a nine-day span.
The Clippers won that game by 30.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver sent a memo to NBA teams that called player resting “an extremely significant issue for our league” and urged owners to have more of a say in when their star players rest.
“Decisions of this kind ... can affect fans and business partners, impact our reputation and damage the perception of our game,” Silver wrote in the memo. “With so much at stake, it is simply not acceptable for governors to be uninvolved or to defer decision-making authority on these matters to others in their organizations.”
Popovich’s Spurs later rested Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Pau Gasol, but in the first game of a back-to-back against the Dallas Mavericks instead of the nationally televised second game against the Clippers.
The practice wasn’t unique to championship contenders. Tankers did it as well.
Both the Suns and Lakers benched their veterans to finish the season with the Western Conference’s worst and second-worst records, respectively.
In mid-March, Los Angeles shut down Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng — the two highest-paid Lakers — for the rest of the season. The very next day, Phoenix benched a healthy Eric Bledsoe for the year. Bledsoe was having a career year, averaging 21 points, six assists, and five rebounds per game. His benching followed the Suns’ decision to shut down both Tyson Chandler and Brandon Knight.
This is a two-pronged issue.
Stern is right to be upset. The Nets had no horse in the playoff picture and already weren’t getting their draft pick, so they had no reason to rest their top players for the season finale.
While the playoff order in the West was set before the last game, the East still had drama left. The Heat and Bulls were tied for the last postseason spot at 40-41 with one game left apiece, and the Pacers were clinging onto the No. 7 seed at 41-40.
The Bulls held the tiebreaker over the Heat, which is why they moved into the playoffs despite identical records. But the Pacers did not. Miami defeated Indiana in two of their three regular season matchups and would have advanced into the playoffs if the Pacers lost their season finale.
But Indiana played the Atlanta Hawks, who had secured their standing as the fifth seed in the previous game. The Hawks went on to rest Dwight Howard, Kent Bazemore, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Dennis Schroder. The Pacers, at full strength, won by 18.
Stern put it best: “It’s inexcusable.”
“I don’t think the Commissioner maybe can, or even should, do anything about [resting],” Stern told USA Today. “But shame on the Brooklyn Nets. They broke the [pact with fans].”
Teams’ decisions to rest their star players are also a consequence of harsh NBA scheduling, however. The average team played around 16 sets of back-to-backs this season, and while that’s an improvement from last year’s mark of nearly 18, it’s still a harsh physical toll.
Moreover, the NBA squeezed multiple sets of back-to-backs into a short period of time. When the Cavaliers rested their Big 3 against the Clippers in March, they were in the middle of a brutal stretch.
Stern is the man who, in the first place, settled on the NBA’s regular season total of 82 games when he took over as commissioner in 1980. And it was also Stern who set the precedent by fining San Antonio $250,000 for leaving Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, and Danny Green home for the last game of a six-game road trip in 2012.
Hindsight is 20/20. Hopefully, Silver has the foresight to find a fair solution.
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