My original plan for today was to do Part I of the baseball preview. But there was a piece of news that kept scrolling on ESPN over and over that simply bothered me too much to let it go. It's the quote from LeBron James saying that certain players "need rest" and that it was a coach's job to "win a championship, not win a game." He also said that the NBA "can't do anything about it."
Well, LeBron, I know a lot of people (yourself included) think you walk on water. But you don't come off well here. I've never played in the NBA and I never will, so I can't speak to the grind of an NBA season. Those comments, though, illustrate the biggest problem with the NBA today. The let the players run the show. And in this case, the players come off as privileged and spoiled. This isn't Allen Iverson ranting about practice ("We're talking about practice!") either. This is guys sitting out games because they "need to rest." Gimme a break!
Resting starters is nothing new. Starting goalies rarely play the second game of back-to-backs in the NHL, baseball teams will either give guys the day off or DH them in a day game following a night game, and football teams that are locked into playoff positions commonly sit starters in Week 17. You even see it in soccer. European teams rarely play their starters in the weekend game before a midweek Champions League contest. The difference here, though, is that (with the possible exception of the soccer teams) those starters who are sitting are still technically available. In the NBA, when teams rest starters, that means they're not playing at all. They might as well not even suit up.
That I think is why the NBA is so upset with the Cavs. They played a nationally-televised game against the Clippers the other night, with LeBron, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love all sitting out. A nationally televised game. And the defending champions decide that the game isn't important enough for three starters to play in it. Talk about an insult to the league. And the fans.
Unfortunately, this happens way too frequently in the NBA. How many times last season did you see something about the Warriors weighing resting their players against going for the wins record? Likewise, the Spurs sit their entire starting lineup at once how many times a season?
It's magnified so much more in the NBA because that's such a star-driven league compared to the other three. Sure, an A's-Twins game in September can resemble Spring Training and NFL preseason games are complete wastes of time, but hockey is a much more physically-demanding sport than basketball and, other than goalies, are their stars ever given a night off to "rest?" Imagine going to a Blackhawks game and they decided to play without Kane, Toews and Keith all on the same night. What would be the point in even going to the game?
To me, that's the biggest issue here. NBA teams don't just sit their best players to "rest" them, they announce ahead of time that they aren't playing. Even worse, they sit the all in the same game! If you're a fan and you're buying tickets, especially if it's a road game for a team you want to see (potentially only once), you have every reason to be angry about that. It's an insult to the fans to essentially tell them "this game isn't important enough to use our starters." If I was one of those fans, I'd demand my money back, even if I still went to the game.
Only teams that are comfortably in playoff position sit their stars out to "rest" them. But, just for a second, imagine if they were a borderline playoff team and they ended up missing the playoffs by one game (or it affected a seed) because they "rested" their best players and lost to a team they had no business losing to. Even worse, how do you think the team that misses the playoffs by one game because the Cavs or Warriors decided to sit players against a borderline playoff team, and that was the game that ended up putting the other team in the playoffs feels in that situation? (I know what you're thinking--that's not Cleveland's problem. And it's not. But that's not really much consolation to the team on the short end of that scenario.)
I'm not the only one who was rubbed the wrong way by LeBron's comments. Karl Malone, who never took a game off during his Hall of Fame career, shot right back at him. He informed LeBron that his "work" is playing a game. There are plenty of people risking their lives for our country that don't get the option of taking a day off...and they aren't paid anywhere near as handsomely as professional basketball players. The Mailman even threw out his own suggestion...only players with at least 10 years of experience can sit out to "rest."
He might be on to something, except I'd take it a little bit farther. Unless there's an injury or suspension, you're only allowed to sit a maximum two of your regular starters in any given game. How "regular" is defined could be open to interpretation, so let's just use who started the last game as the definition to start with.
And if a guy is "out" for "rest," he's not in uniform. If he's not going to play, he shouldn't be in uniform. (Besides, isn't it an NBA rule that you need to have a minimum number of players available?) Or, you simply don't declare ahead of time that certain guys aren't playing (I don't know why you would want to for scouting purposes anyway).
As for LeBron's opinion that "there's nothing the NBA can do about it," I'd have to say he's wrong again here. That's why a very upset NBA called the Cavs' GM and started this whole firestorm. My guess is fines for the first offense, with the penalty scale increasing from there, leading to coaches being suspended without pay for a game. They need some sort of deterrent, and that's the best one I can think of, seeing as the union would never sign off on any form of punishment for the players.
There's 82 games in an NBA season. Throwing in the preseason and playoffs, that total gets over 100. That can be a lot on the body. I get it. That's why they've built extra off days into the All-Star Break and, starting next season, will be starting a week earlier to give the players an extra week off during the season. All of that's being done at the request of the Players' Union. The least they can do in return is actually show up for all 82 games. They owe it to the fans. You know, the people responsible for their ridiculous salaries.
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