Last Friday, the Head Coach of the Golden State Warriors, Steve Kerr, rested his top players in a game against the Denver Nuggets. Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala and Andrew Bogut sat on the bench. Kerr made this decision because the next night they were playing the New York Knicks at home. He figured not starting them on the road in Denver was the way to go rather than playing them two nights in a row. Some fans weren’t happy about this decision. They sent him emails explaining how disappointed they were because they hoped to watch their favorite players. One family even drove from South Dakota to watch the game. Kerr understood why these fans were disappointed since they spent money for tickets to basically see a bench team. The Denver Nuggets didn’t play Kenneth Faried, Danilo Gallinari, or Ty Lawson last night in a back-to back road game.
How can the NBA stop teams from resting their top players? This seems to happen a few times every season, especially during the playoff run. Teams usually only do this on back-to-back games when they are on the road resting their stars. Most of the time this occurs when it’s the second game of a back-to-back and not the first game. It’s not fair to fans. They spend money for tickets and transportation. For some, it may be the only game they see live in a year. Fans won’t know the coaches’ decision until the start of the game even though its’ made hours before the game.
The NBA can’t force a team to use their starters. One way they can avoid this is to schedule less back–to-back games in the season. Teams wouldn’t need to rest their players. Less back-to-back games would also allow teams to have more rest during the season. Fans could go to games, watch top athletes from every team, and not worry that top players are benched.
How can the NBA avoid teams resting players?
Why not just eliminate back to back games during the final third of the season? Then the teams could have real teams playing each other.