NBA teams resting players has become a trending topic in the league in recent weeks, and Commissioner Adam Silver has finally addressed the matter in a memo sent to all 30 teams Monday that calls it "an extremely significant issue."
In the memo, Silver said teams can expect a "full discussion" to be had regarding resting players at the upcoming Board of Governors meeting, which will be held in April in New York City.
“Decisions of this kind do not merely implicate issues of player health and team performance on the court,” Silver said in the memo, The Washington Post reported. “They also can affect fans and business partners, impact our reputation, and damage the perception of our game. With so much at stake, it is simply not acceptable for Governors to be uninvolved or to defer decision-making authority on these matters to others in their organizations.”
The memo comes after the top two teams in the NBA — the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers — each sat their star players the past two Saturdays.
According to ESPN, Cleveland’s general manager David Griffin said the league office contacted him after the team chose to rest its big three — LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love — in a primetime televised game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday.
Cleveland went on to lose that game in dramatic fashion, 108-78.
However, Griffin said it’s not his job to cater to the league office or the NBA’s business partnerships with different networks like ESPN.
“They’re paying me to win a championship,” Griffin told ESPN. “I’m not overly concerned about the perception of it. We literally had one guy rest tonight, and everybody else was reasonably injured, so I don’t feel like we did anything terribly egregious.”
On Monday, ESPN released a statement of its own speaking against teams who rest their players during nationally televised matchups.
“As always, our aim is to serve NBA fans with the best matchups involving the league’s top stars and we share the fans’ disappointment,” the statement said. “We understand this is a complex issue and we’re working closely with the NBA to best address it going forward from a media partnership standpoint.”
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