Adam Silver is one of the smartest minds in all of sports and he’s shown that will his leadership of the NBA. The Commissioner of the league hasn’t had an easy tenure in charge of the NBA but has worked admirably towards growing the sport even more than what David Stern had done.
Silver speaks to the media a couple of times in a season but tries to answer tough questions that are posed to him about a myriad of topics.
The Commissioner spoke to ESPN about a number of pressing topics including officiating and the trade market but his comments on load management in the NBA were particularly note-worthy.
“I don’t want to suggest there’s a magic bullet here. I don’t think it’s just about incentivizing players to play more, that the teams are as much a part of the load management as the players are, because again, I think there’s been a societal shift. Everything’s about winning a championship these days and it’s less, I think in all sports, about how you perform day in and day out. And so it’s a cultural issue as well. (h.t ESPN)
Silver went on to say that the NBA is looking to address load management in the new collective bargaining agreement by requiring a minimum number of games played for award consideration and shifting the culture to value total stats over a season instead of statistical averages.
Can The Culture Of Load Management Be Changed?
Load management is not a new phenomenon. Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs used to load manage in a time before it was a league-wide occurrence and used to even get fined by the league for sitting their players. Popovich understood the value of getting his players rest and this is something every training and coaching staff in the NBA does now.
Load management is typically reserved for the top-tier stars that may not care to stat pad for awards and would prefer staying healthy for the post-season, so implementing a minimum game requirement for awards is a half measure. The easiest solution would be to reduce the number of games in a season to give the players more rest, but it’s unlikely the NBA does that either.
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