NBA New Rest Policies Explained

NBA New Rest Policies: The NBA has made significant progress towards resolving the problem of great players taking unscheduled rest days throughout the league on Wednesday.

The NBA’s board of governors recently approved new regulations that forbid benching players for contests shown on national television and resting many stars at once.

The NBA has had “load management” issues in recent years. The NBA’s competition committee submitted a strategy to the league’s board of governors to try to put an end to the practice of stars sitting out regular-season games with no specific ailment classifications (or extremely vague ones).

The new NBA rest policies are discussed

The NBA’s new resting rules will penalise clubs who rest players for games that air on national television and who bench numerous stars at once.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the league defines a star player as “someone who has made the All-Star or All-NBA teams in any of the three previous seasons.”

The guidelines that teams must adhere to are listed in Wojnarowski’s report as follows:

• In order to avoid having more than one top player miss a game, teams must manage their rosters.
• Star players must be accessible for games in in-season tournaments and games shown on national television, according to teams.
• Teams must balance the amount of times a prominent player misses one game between home and away games, with the preference for those absences to occur at home.
• When a star player ceases competing in games or plays a significantly reduced role in situations that compromise the fairness of the game, teams are prohibited from engaging in any long-term shutdown — or close to shutdown — of the player.

Teams must make sure healthy players who are taking a break before a game are present and visible to spectators.

During the regular season, there will be certain exclusions, particularly for back-to-back situations.

“The NBA will permit pre-approved designated back-to-back allowances for players who are 35 years old on opening night or have career workloads of 34,000 regular-season minutes or 1,000 regular-season/playoff games combined,” according to Wojnarowski.

The NBA will enforce this regulation using a system of fines “that begins with $100,000 for the first offence, $250,000 for second offences, and $1 million more than the previous penalty for each additional fine.”

The league has taken other measures this offseason to abolish load management, so this is not the first one.

There are new regulations in effect as of this season that may affect who is eligible for end-of-season honours. For accolades like MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, and All-NBA teams, players must now play in 65 regular-season games.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver is hoping that these two new regulations would deter clubs from purposefully resting their key players.

You might also be interested in reading this: Sources: New NBA Rule On Resting Stars

NBA players who are eligible for the “star” moniker

The NBA defines a “star” player as someone who has made an All-Star or All-NBA team in any of the previous three seasons, as was previously indicated.

The full list of the 49 players that meet that criteria is shown below: