Players rested, healthy for finals
In bulldozing their respective conferences through the first three rounds of the postseason, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors each earned an extended rest before their highly anticipated showdown in the NBA Finals begins on Thursday.
Both teams appear to be playing their best basketball at the most important time. One of the reasons cited is the strategic rest days given to star players sporadically through the long regular season.
Known in the league as “DNP-Rest,” the practice of sitting healthy players to avoid injury and fatigue has grown in popularity as teams focus more on reducing the wear and tear on the stars who drive the league. And while forward-thinking teams have been praised for putting the player first, there is concern across the league that the approach threatens to alienate fans who pay to see their favorite players, aggravate network executives who paid billions to showcase games and devalue the regular season.
“We don’t rest. I don’t believe in it,” Miami Heat president Pat Riley said in April. “I think it’s gotten to the point where it’s become a travesty, an absolute travesty. Blatantly. I don’t care how many players you’re resting
or who. Who are the ones entitled to get the rest versus who doesn’t rest? We don’t rest.”
Riley had reason to be upset. After an 11-30 start to the season, the Heat rebounded to win 30 of their last 41 games to surge back into playoff contention. Heading into the final day of the season, the Heat needed a win over the Washington Wizards and a Chicago loss to Brooklyn or a Pacers loss to the Hawks to get into the Eastern Conference field as the eighth seed. But the Nets sat Jeremy Lin, Trevor Booker and Brook Lopez, essentially handing the game to the Bulls.
During the regular season, there were 203 instances of a healthy player sitting out of a game, according to data compiled by instreetclothes.com, a website run by certified athletic trainer Jeff Stotts that has analyzed injuries for years. Ten years ago, there were only 12 such instances.
“It’s not my preference to rest. I do understand rest and why you do it,” said Kevin Garnett, who missed one game or none in nine of his first 10 seasons but needed to incorporate rest days more often later in his career. “It’s the way of the league, and I think the prestige of playing 82 is not what it used to be, and this is the way it’s going to be.”
And it’s not just star players on teams trying to preserve themselves for deep playoff runs that are getting the treatment. The Suns sat Eric Bledsoe for the final 14 games of the season, while Tyson Chandler did not play after the All-Star break. The Lakers shut down Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng for the final 15 games while trying to hold on to their lottery pick, and the Nets may have had the biggest head-scratcher by not playing three key players despite the importance of the game’s outcome.
“Personally I think it is a legit concern,” said Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, chairman of the NBA’s board of governors. “I look at it as an owner for my fans. Fans come and certainly they want our team to win. But they like to beat the star on the other team. They like to see them out there. They like to see a competitive game. So first of all my concern is for my fans that we play as many players as we can, that we play to win.”
Taylor said there were also concerns after the league started a 10-year, $24 billion television deal with Turner and ABC/ESPN. Several nationally televised games were diluted because of key players resting. It reached a crescendo over consecutive Saturdays in March when the Cavaliers and Warriors both sat stars for ESPN games.