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Former Comissioner David Stern: ‘Shame on the Brooklyn Nets’

In today’s NBA, head coaches have begun resting players to conserve their bodies for the postseason or to avoid back-to-backs. Teams resting players was one of the hottest topics in the last month of the regular season; almost everyone had something to say about it. Whether it was the ABC broadcasting team around Mike Breen, Jeff van Gundy and Mark Jackson who did not like the Cavaliers’ decision to rest players, calling it “an absolute joke” and “a prosecutable offense”, Dennis Rodman, who then went back and forth with Steve Kerr in an ‘resting players’ feud, or Comissioner Adam Silver, who called resting an ‘extremely significant issue for our league’, everyone had his take on the issue.

Now, former NBA Comissioner David Stern had the feeling to also be part of the discussion.  Silver was a guest on USA TODAY Sports’ ‘NBA A to Z podcast’ and completely went off on the Brooklyn Nets. He said:

“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. 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. I don’t think the Commissioner maybe can, or even should, do anything about it. But shame on the Brooklyn Nets. They broke the pact with fans.”

There is no easy solution to this dilemma. The Nets didn’t have anything to play for, and their star players Brook Lopez and Jeremy Lin a injury prone. This was a business decision, and the team was better off resting their players.

Teams won’t stop resting their players, it is important for them in order to have a healthy squad come playoff time. If the NBA starts to ban resting, with fines, or other restrictions, players surely will have questionable injuries – made up, chronical or minor. The NBA also won’t shorten the regular season, because they would lose a lot of money in doing so. The right way to change up things and possibly put an end to this whole resting saga is to provide more rest days, and fewer back-to-backs, which the NBA will do starting next season.