San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich doesn’t have a problem with the NBA’s new procedures for resting players.
But that doesn’t mean he understands them.
As he told reporters prior to San Antonio’s loss at the hands of the Boston Celtics on Monday night, per ESPN.com’s Chris Forsberg:
“Frankly, it’s a little bit cloudy. It’s all done in good faith to make your fans feel like they’re seeing what they want to see for their money, which I understand,” Popovich said prior to Monday’s game in Boston before deadpanning, “I’m just glad I was never one of those guys that rested people.”
Turning more serious, he added, “So the league, obviously, they’ve compromised a great deal. This schedule is great. The way they’ve reduced back-to-backs and four-in-five-nights and that sort of thing, Adam listened and I think that’s huge. It speaks a lot for how much he cares about the players and the league. The fans are important, too, and we gotta understand that.”
Commissioner Adam Silver now has the ability to levy fines unto teams that scratch key players from marquee matchups, particularly those scheduled to be on national television. The new policy also suggests—if demands—that teams rest players for home games, rather than against away crowds who only get to see them play once or twice a year.
But Popovich noted, per Forsberg, that the NBA leaves a lot of stop open for interpretation.
One of the fuzzy details he references: back-to-back protocols. He is still someone who will rest guys on the second night of a road back-to-back without hesitation. Will he get fined for that no matter what, or only if the second game is nationally televised? Can he get fined at all? Or is he supposed to schedule his rest days around the better matchups in general, meaning the recovery night should come during the first game in certain instances?
We can’t really be sure until the NBA takes a stance on a certain situation. And you can bet dollars to donuts that the Spurs, of all teams, will be the first franchise to test the limits of the league’s new resting stratagems.
