Load management is a growing and persistent problem in the NBA today, but most teams have yet to catch on to the outrage that it brings. On Saturday, the Miami Heat became the latest team to get blasted online for deciding to rest their biggest star, Jimmy Butler, on the third game of the season.
Jimmy Butler is listed as OUT for tonight's game due to rest.
It's the third game of the season. pic.twitter.com/4zaObpX2bx
— The Sporting News (@sportingnews) October 28, 2023
Butler is perfectly healthy and has no other reason to “rest” than simply for the sake of doing it. This early into the season, every player should be fresh, rested, and at their peak but it seems that the Heat have elected to send a message that they don’t much care at all about what happens between now and the playoff race in May.
Of course, it does matter to the fans in Minnesota, who paid their own hard-earned money for tickets to watch Butler and his team in action. Unfortunately, the game isn’t nearly as exciting knowing the Heat will be without their best player and there’s nothing the fans can do but complain.
Butler Mocked For Being “Soft”
The NBA is currently one of the only places on the planet where you can get paid for not showing up to work. Despite making roughly $460,000 per game, he can’t be bothered to play for two nights in a row and it really is a bad look for both Jimmy and the Heat that he’s willing to skip a game this early on into the season.
How people watch @NBA 🏀 regular season games is beyond me.
At least with @MLB half the teams don’t make the Playoffs. Plus there’s a new pitcher every game so it feels like it matters more.
— Brent Lyons (@BPLyons11) October 28, 2023
The wild thing about this whole situation is that Jimmy Butler prides himself on being an alpha competitor, and he’s earned a reputation for his “relentless” drive to win. Evidently, his competitive spirit isn’t strong enough to resist load management and fans are calling him soft over it.
https://twitter.com/C1231Will/status/1718392225829183932https://twitter.com/TermineRadio/status/1718344968014876934
Needless to say, Jimmy Butler is putting his entire reputation on the line if he continues to implement load management to this degree. As someone who many thought had respect for his fellow players, the game, and the fans, it’s disappointing to see Butler take the night off three games into the new season but unless the NBA takes action, we shouldn’t expect him to abandon this strategy anytime soon.
The NBA’s War Against Load Management
The NBA used to be cool with load management at a smaller scale, but the league has since taken a stance against the practice. With growing hatred and resentment towards the tradition, Adam Silver has come out to combat the notion that missing back-to-backs prevents injuries and fatigue and that has been proven by the injury-plagued history of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
And while some would argue that back-to-back games are the real problem for the NBA, the 82-game schedule has existed for over 75 years and it wasn’t really an issue until the past five. It wasn’t until modern-day athletes like LeBron, Kawhi, and Butler that it became normal to skip back-to-backs but its continued existence could have some drastic implications on the NBA product.
Over the past few years, thanks to increasing outrage on the subject, more and more awareness has been brought to load management and the NBA could decide to take more steps against it if fan outrage continues across the league. But until more changes are made, there’s nothing for us to do but complain and call out those teams and players who brush off regular-season games like they don’t matter to the people who pay to attend them.
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