The NBA rest debate continues to rage on as the league tries to figure out what it can do to avoid teams like the Warriors, Cavs and Spurs sitting their best players for entire games.
Commissioner Adam Silver has called it a “significant issue” in a memo to the NBA’s Board of Governors and floated the idea of punishing teams that rest players. LeBron James has said there’s no real way for the NBA to stop teams from resting players, while Doc Rivers has requested national TV games not be scheduled on back-to-backs to avoid games like Cavs-Clippers or Warriors-Spurs. Jeff Van Gundy and Charles Barkley have yelled a lot about it, and Chris Bosh offered a measured take for the anti-rest side.
Everyone involved knows what the correct answer to limiting players resting is, but everyone also knows that it involves the potential for a loss of revenue. Cutting the number of games on the schedule in order to eliminate back-to-backs is the solution that would work, but the league, players and (maybe most importantly) TV networks don’t want to lose out on revenue.
However, there is at least one person in the NBA willing to take a pay cut in order to reduce the number of games played: Warriors coach Steve Kerr.
Kerr told reporters in Dallas that he would be open to a reduction in games on the schedule, even as small as 82 to 75, in order to give players more time off between games even if it meant he made less money.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to it, even at the expense to my own salary, but it’s something that everyone would have to agree to,” Kerr said. “I think even just going down to 75 games, I think that would make a dramatic difference in schedule. Now I don’t see that happening because there is money at stake for everybody.”
Kerr is also a realist and knows there’s no chance the entire league (or the majority of the league) would agree to that, but he wouldn’t object if it were to happen. Kerr’s Warriors were part of the catalyst for the latest rest debate, after Golden State rested all of its top players against the Spurs — which did the same. That was followed by the Cavs resting their Big 3 a week later, which set off the widespread outrage towards players being rested.
While Kerr doesn’t believe a massive change like reducing the number of games is coming, he does think there will be improvement next year as the league is beginning the season earlier in order to cut back on how many back-to-backs teams play.
“I do think this can be remedied, though—maybe not remedied—but I think it can be dramatically helped with what the league is already working on for next year and the consideration of geographics when it comes to the schedule,” Kerr said.
This issue will slowly die out as the playoffs go on and we reach the draft and free agency, so we’ll have to wait until next spring to find out if the schedule shift will have a positive impact on reducing the number of games teams use to rest players.
(h/t Bleacher Report)
