Yahoo Sports NBA writers Jake Fischer and Dan Devine discuss the strong penalties announced by the league – which could lead to fines up to $1 million if multiple All-Star or All-NBA players on one team are unavailable for the same game – and what’s behind it.
Hear the full conversation on “No Cap Room” – part of the “Ball Don’t Lie” podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen
Video Transcript
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JAKE FISCHER: The board of governors, the competition committee, they have approved new strict guidelines. They’re trying to make it so that, quote, star players, someone who has made an all-star or an all-NBA team in the past three seasons, no team can have two of those players resting at the same time.
Under the new rules, teams will be fined $100,000 for the first violation, $250,000 for the second violation, and a million more than the previous penalty for each additional violation. That is a steep penalty, man. What are your thoughts?
DAN DEVINE: It’s like the repeater tax of extra rest guidelines. It’s literally a decade in the making. This was November of 2012 when Gregg Popovich decided to send Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Danny Green, all of them, home from a road trip. It’s become a huge deal over the years. And this is the owners, this is the league office, and the league’s marketing partners and broadcast partners in particular looking to take some of the control and the power back from that.
I’ll be really interested to see how heavily this shifts things. But it’s certainly a big move by the league to say, it’s going to hurt you if you just keep your guys out for rest for kind of– if it’s a 50/50 call, and you rest the guy, we know we’re going to make you hurt for it.
JAKE FISCHER: The overall theme here, the 2 plus 2 equals 5 math that Olivia Rodrigo is doing that my girlfriend made me listen to while we ate dinner last night– there’s a pop culture shoutout for our listeners– the league is really trying to do whatever they can to juice up the importance of the regular season again.
DAN DEVINE: Absolutely.
JAKE FISCHER: And to do that mental math, why do we think that is, Dan?
DAN DEVINE: Well, part of it is broadcast, right? The league is about to start going into– is negotiating on the–
JAKE FISCHER: That’s it. That’s the 5. It’s the broadcast.
DAN DEVINE: No, no, no. Because there’s a second– hang on, right camera. Second part of it. So that broadcast is a big part of it. You’re about to negotiate the next media rights deal, and you want that–
JAKE FISCHER: To me, that’s the only part of it. So I’m curious what your second thing is going to be.
DAN DEVINE: It’s gambling. Because there are 50 players who are covered– spread across 25 teams by this framework of your star players can’t sit under certain circumstances. But there are also carve-outs for all your big superstars. There’s carve-outs for guys like LeBron or Steph or Kevin Durant or Kawhi Leonard.
Pre-approved, designated, back-to-back allowances for if your players are over 35 or have career workloads of more than 34,000 regular-season minutes, or 1,000 regular season and playoff games combined, or have a prior or unusual injury history.
So the reason I say gambling stuff is they want advance notice.
JAKE FISCHER: That’s important.
DAN DEVINE: They want to make sure it’s not like the afternoon of the game, the 5:00 o’clock injury report comes around, and it’s like, oh, this guy’s actually not going to play. And that shifts the line or whatever late.
JAKE FISCHER: That’s a great point. I just don’t think– I try not to think about gambling. I really don’t.
DAN DEVINE: I hear you.
JAKE FISCHER: It’s something that I try to really put a whole blind eye towards.
