After multiple big changes in trading and signing rules, the NBA has just dropped one of the biggest changes in the past few years: The Resting Rules.
The Resting Rules includes a new policy in which teams are unable to rest two star players in the same game. A star player is defined as someone who earned an All-Star or All-NBA selection within the past three seasons. This could completely change how the league plays out.
After the news dropped ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski added, “teams would be fined $100,000 for a first violation of the new policy, $250,000 for a second violation and “$1 million more than the previous penalty for each additional violation.”
The implementation of these rules are to reduce the frequency of load management. Over the past few years, a trend of teams has started to rest their star players in order to prepare for the bigger games or the Playoffs. This has heavily impacted the Nationalized TV games and lowered fan interest due to the stars frequently missing out on games.
More rules implemented includes:
- Teams have to make sure their stars are available to play in national TV games
- Teams are no longer allowed to rest more than one “star” player in the same game.
- Teams have to balance between rest for home games and road games. The league prefers that teams rest their star players at home and play them on the road, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks.
How Will These Rules Affect Each Teams?
When fans first read the news about the new rules, everyone immediately thinks of the star-studded Clippers, which has been bothered by injuries and has been applying load managements. And yes, the Clippers might be the most heavily impacted teams by the rule.
The Clippers will have to play either Kawhi or Paul George if either one is healthy and cannot apply load management anymore. This means we will see a lot more games involving both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. However, we can’t escape the risk of being injured, which has now been risen after the abominating of load management and resting players during Nationalized games.
On the other hand, the Clippers aren’t the only team affected. Teams like the Warriors and Kings could have less worries although the Kings aren’t allowed to rest both Fox and Sabonis in a single game. Furthermore, with the Kings having the most Televised game in the League, the Kings will have to make sure their stars can play in all of them. The Lakers will get heavily impacted too because of the Lakers cannot be resting either Lebron or Davis in a game. This means Davis may have a higher chance of getting injured and the 38 year old King cannot rest and leave it to the others if the Lakers decide to.
The League Leader 
Leave a comment