11 September 2023 , 22:26
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The NBA has announced a rule change to ensure the league’s star athletes are playing more during the regular season.
According to ESPN, the NBA's Competition Committee has proposed stricter guidelines on teams resting players for games broadcast on television. Should the league's Board of Governors vote in favour of the policy, a team will be unable to rest two star players in the same game.
The definition of a star is a player who has been on an All-Star or All-NBA team in any of the last three seasons. In recent seasons load management has been one of the biggest talking points around the NBA.
During the regular season, some players have been rested in order to ensure they are in peak condition for the Playoffs and to avoid burnout. Numerous top players have been criticised for using 'load management' such as Kawhi Leonard, who has struggled with injury and has not played at least 60 games in a season since 2019.
Earlier this year, NBA legend Magic Johnson expressed his dislike for the term and stressed the desire the likes of himself Michael Jordan had for wanting to play every single game. "I hate it. I dislike it. I was just at Michael Jordan's 60th birthday party. He pulled me to the side, and we talked about [Load Management] for 30 straight minutes," the LA Lakers icon said.
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"We played every game. We want to play every single game. We couldn't wait to get out there on the court." Last season, fans expressed their frustration with missing out on seeing superstar players in road games because they've sat out, something that involved several different teams.
During All-Star game weekend in February, when asked about the issue and how to manage it, NBA commissioner Adam Silver failed to provide a concrete answer. Furthermore, he thought the idea of star players missing certain games to rest was blown out of proportion, especially as the NBA was on track to set all-time records for ticket sales and season-ticket renewals at the time.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver previously said load management was not a big problem in the NBA (Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)"It's not just game play," Silver said. "But teams deciding not to practice, teams deciding to, you know, do whatever they can to maintain players being in an optimal position to compete during games. This isn't a new issue. There's nothing particularly happening this season that we haven't seen happening over the last several seasons.
"I understand it from a fan standpoint that if you are particularly buying tickets to a particular game and that player isn't playing. I don't have a good answer for that other than this is a deep league with incredible competition. Even given where we are now, I don't think the issue is quite what some suggest. I mean, our stars are not missing that many games for resting. I mean, we have injuries.
"I think we would all agree that's a separate issue. But sort of as a measure of single games missed, it's not that bad." With just a month to go until the start of the new season, it appears that both Silver and the NBA have come to a solution that benefits the fans and those who run the league.