Resting Stars: What Can the NBA Do to Fix This Fiasco?

Whether you’re a Cavs fan, a Grizzlies fan, or just a fan of good basketball, Wednesday night in Memphis was a complete joke and a slap in the face to paying customers.

The value of a regular season game was proven to be dirt cheap.

Meanwhile, people like this were left holding the bag, while most people at home couldn’t even bother to pay attention to the television.

https://twitter.com/LegionHoops/status/809231122509025282

So who’s to blame and what can be done?

The easy thing to do would be to point the finger at Tyronn Lue for making the decision. Yes, he’s partially responsible.

However, just last week, Lue had to answer questions from members of the media about why LeBron James was playing 40-plus minutes two games in a row.

He threw his hands up as if to say “What do you want me to do?”

You’re darned if you do, you’re darned if you don’t.

Resting LeBron, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love all on the same night may not have been the best way to go about it, but if limiting their minutes is the biggest priority, he at least addressed that issue.

While we’re at it, I don’t recall seeing an outpouring of emotion and sympathy for Cleveland fans who did not get to see Marc Gasol play on Tuesday night at the Q.

Gasol was just named Western Conference Player of the Week and is the only healthy star player on the Grizzlies’ roster.

It was their only trip to Cleveland and how do we know there were not Grizzlies fans or just fans of Gasol who were disappointed by his absence?

The point is that the Cavs aren’t the only team doing this. It’s not new. But the more it happens, the louder the criticism will be.

So what can the league do?

Shorten the regular season. That would make too much sense… but it wouldn’t make enough dollars.

I’m sure players would love to hear the words “72-game season.”

But they might not like being told that they’ll only be paid 90 percent of what they’d normally make.

So cross that one off the list.

Only rest players at home.

Now wait a minute? I know plenty of friends and families who go to one or two games per season. They plan for that specific game months in advance. How would you like to find out that one chance you get to see your favorite players is the night where the home fans get screwed?

There’s no perfect way to go about it with the current schedule.

What about starting the season a few weeks earlier?

This seems to make the most sense. Rather than play 82 games between the last week of October and the second week of April, push opening night back to late-September.

Space out the games throughout the season so there are no back-to-backs.

This could possibly mean shortening the preseason to only two or three games instead of six or seven.

It also means a shorter off-season, something that teams like the Cavs, who play deep into May and June, would not like, but this seems like the most practical alternative to what’s going on around the league with all 30 teams.

Should teams be punished for resting stars?

The last question that this brings up is “Who gets to determine what player is a star?”

If the league were to “punish” teams for resting stars, what is the line for which players are allowed to rest and which players can’t be rested?

Let’s say the Cavs are playing the Boston Celtics on the second night of a back-to-back.

The Celtics decide to give Avery Bradley the night off.

Bradley is not known as a “star,” but is one of the most productive guards in the league.

Does the commissioner step in and tell Boston, “you can’t rest that guy because he’s playing well.”

Or does the league view the issue as… “well at least it wasn’t Isaiah Thomas. Who cares about Bradley anyway?”

These are the blurred lines.

If the league decides to penalize teams for resting stars, how long will it be before Ty Lue says “Yeah, LeBron had a stomach ache last minute. Sorry.”

How is the league going to prove it one way or the other?

Are they going to have independent observers watching the players’ every move?

If you ask me, the best route the league can go is to start the season earlier. There will still be complaints. Players won’t like having a short offseason, but it seems to have the least amount of negative consequences compared to other ideas.