This season, Chris Paul and Mikal Bridges have played all of the Suns’ matches (58). This was already the case for the winger last season, as well as for the two previous seasons. Clearly, after almost four seasons, Bridges has never missed a game in his NBA career!
A regularity that would like to underline his coach, Monty Williams, who judges that we speak too often of players who miss matches, to rest within the framework of “load management”, rather than of those who swallow them.
“We should find a way to reward them”explains the coach of Phoenix for theAZ-Central. “I don’t want to penalize those who skip matches, but reward those who play every night. We always talk about those who don’t play and I don’t want to go into that area because I don’t want to disrespect anyone. “
So how do you reward them? Especially since there are not many of them: last season, alone eleven playersincluding Bridges and MVP Nikola Jokic, played in all 72 regular-season games.
“For me, it should be possible with the salary cap. I don’t know if it’s possible, but they deserve it: they’re there every night, they know they have a responsibility to play in front of the public, to give to their franchise. Afterwards, people will tell me that they are already very well paid and that’s why they earn so much: to play every night and be good. “
The coach of the 2021 finalists wishes at least to symbolically pay these players who manage to play the entire long NBA regular season.
“We have to find a way, even if it’s just to talk about it a bit, because at the moment we’re only talking about players who don’t play certain matches. And there are players who feel it’s a lack of respect for their sport not to play when they can. One way or another, these guys have to be rewarded. “
