Load management is one of the hottest topics when discussing the NBA lately. Teams often rely on software to track a player’s workload and determine how much is too much. This results in non-injured players sitting out for a game to avoid the risk of an injury.
One player who is not a fan of load management is Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves. When asked about this issue, he clarified that players sitting out games need to participate. The game is played for the fans and some may have saved up just to see that one player that ends up sitting out.
“All the guys sitting, resting. That’s the only thing I probably don’t like,” Edwards said when asked if there was one thing he’d change about the NBA. “Just play, man. If you 80%, you gotta play. I don’t like all the sitting, missing games stuff. These people might have enough money to come to one game. And that might be the game they come to and you sitting out.”
The problem starts at the top of the NBA, and it isn’t a priority for the league office to address it. In typical commissioner fashion, he threw out a long-winded word salad that
NBA NEWS: Anthony Edwards & Minnesota Timberwolves Updates
“I hesitate to weigh in on an issue as to whether players are playing enough because there is real medical data and scientific data about what’s appropriate,” Silver said. “Sometimes, to me, the premise of a question as to whether players are playing enough suggests that they should be playing more — that, in essence, there should be some notion of just get out there and play. Having been in the league for a long time, having spent time with a lot of some of our great legends, I don’t necessarily think that’s the case.”
“The world that we used to have where it was just, ‘Get out there and play through injuries,’ for example, I don’t think that’s appropriate. Clearly, I mean, at the end of the day, these are human beings — many of you talk to and know well — who are often playing through enormous pain, who play through all kinds of aches and pains on a regular basis.”
“The suggestion, I think, that these men, in the case in the NBA, somehow should just be out there more for its own sake, I don’t buy into.”
NBA NEWS: Anthony Edwards & Minnesota Timberwolves Updates
Many players follow the direction of their team’s medical staff when it comes to load management. It’s not that the superstar randomly chooses that they don’t want to participate on the second night of a back-to-back. For real change to occur, the NBA must either reduce or outright eliminate back-to-backs since the application of medical data will remain the same. It’s complicated since the 82-game season would bring a financial hit for all parties involved.
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