The NBA has gone to war against “load management”, this practice which consists of resting its stars. The Great League has severely tightened its sanctions, so that its superstars no longer miss important matches during the regular season, especially when they appear on the major television channels…
For Joe Dumars, now vice-president and head of basketball operations for the league, it is also a culture that must be changed. Because more than the occasional rests put in place by Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr, it is above all the management of Kawhi Leonard among the Raptors which generated a trend. The success of the Canadian club, which had saved “The Klaw” in the regular season, during the 2018/19 season, to allow it to be fully effective in the playoffs, has thus been emulated.
“It is obvious that not everyone will play 82 matches. But everyone should want to play 82 matches”
“The culture should be that every player should want to play 82 (regular season) games”, explained the former Pistons. “It’s obvious that not everyone will play 82 matches. But everyone should want to play 82 matches. That’s the culture we’re trying to reestablish right now. The competition committee gave its approval. The players’ association has signed, they agree that this is an 82-match championship and everyone should expect to play 82 matches. We have discussed this with everyone over the last few months, and everyone agrees that we have to own what we are.”
Indirectly, it is the growing gap between the regular season and the playoffs that must therefore be filled. Between the offensive marathon of 82 games and the defensive sprint of the “postseason”.
The title contenders are now focusing so much on the playoffs that they no longer see the regular season as a long warm-up, more or less obligatory. And for Joe Dumars and the NBA, this tarnishes the image of the league, and the attractiveness of many of its products, notably the All-Star Game…
“ To get to the point where we are today, we had to let it happen”continues Joe Dumars. “We get there by sliding, slowly, year after year. This doesn’t happen in a single year. It’s slowly, over time, that we see all the slip-ups in terms of missed matches in the regular season, the All-Star Game turning into what it was last year. None of this happened after a year. At some point, we must therefore put an end to this drift. I recognize that this is not an easy proposition, but I can tell you with certainty that it will never stop if you don’t tackle it. »
“We don’t need our TV partners to tell us that the competition is less interesting when teams rest players or players don’t put in effort in the All-Star Game”
Evan Wasch, vice president of basketball strategy and advanced stats, does not deny the impact of television, the channels do not like these meetings without superstars, and these All-Star Games without interest.
“But we don’t need our TV partners to tell us that competition is less interesting when teams rest players or players don’t put in effort in the All-Star Game. It’s incredibly obvious to us because, at the end of the day, we’re trying to serve the fans. Yes, it is true that given that we are going to negotiate the TV rights in a year or two, this takes on even greater importance because we are in the middle of these conversations, but we can identify ourselves that these are questions that must be addressed independently of anything that happens outside.”
In line changes in philosophy on the subject of the Clippers and Sixers on the subject, Joe Dumars also explains that the latest studies show that missing matches occasionally does not ultimately help the health and recovery of athletes that much.
“It was certain that the data showed that certain periods of rest had to be offered to the players and that this justified the players being spared. We got more data, and it doesn’t show that resting players correlates with not having injuries or fatigue or anything like that. What this shows is that players may not be as effective on the second night of a back-to-back. But in terms of injuries and things like that, we thought that was the case before, but as we got more data we realized that it didn’t really hold water.”
On the Philadelphia side, we now think rather play on playing time, particularly for Joel Embiid, than on the number of matches. A new version of “load management”?
