Skip to content

Pop: NBA involvement in resting players 'a slippery slope'

Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports / Action Images

NBA commissioner Adam Silver's memo to team owners last week asking them to think twice about allowing star players to be rested en masse has a familiar detractor: Gregg Popovich.

It was the San Antonio Spurs coach, of course, who sparked the first incarnation of "Restgate" in 2012 when he sent five star players home before a nationally televised showdown with LeBron James' Miami Heat. And while he still understands the concern, he feels the league could be encouraging owners to overstep by not listening to coaches and trainers in order to satisfy fans who have paid steep ticket prices.

"Its a legitimate concern. We all have it," Popovich said Saturday, according to ESPN's Michael C. Wright. "I think they used the example of the young man and his dad or whatever. They've saved up their money. They want to go see somebody play, and that person's not there ... I'd be miffed myself. But we all have different roles, different jobs, and different goals. We can't satisfy everybody. But I think that every owner's gonna be different. I think it's a slippery slope."

The Spurs were fined $250,000 by the NBA for the 2012 incident, and the narrative reared its head again last weekend when the Cleveland Cavaliers sat James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love against the Los Angeles Clippers.

Related: Rivers says NBA must change scheduling to stop teams from resting stars

Make no mistake: The NBA is mostly concerned about the issue when it involves marquee teams playing on TNT or ESPN. No rancor has come about from the Los Angeles Lakers shutting down Luol Deng or the Phoenix Suns sitting out Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight for the remainder of the season.

The league memo's intent is clearly to make teams think twice about resting superstars for high-visibility games, and Popovich admitted he likes one idea that suggests teams try to only do it at home.

"The one comment that I've heard that makes a lot of sense, is that if you're gonna rest somebody, if you can do it at home, then you should," he said before the Spurs' win over the New York Knicks at the AT&T Center. "Like, we're resting Danny Green tonight. Danny Green is not LeBron James, but if we rested Kawhi (Leonard), if there's a way we could do it at home, that seems like a logical thing to me."

Still, Popovich says the scenarios have too many moving parts to institute a hard rule.

"I think there can be areas like that where we come together and try to make everybody happy," he said. "But that's why no basic rule has been written, so to speak. Because you can’t write a rule that covers everything. It's complicated ... kind of like health care."

Daily Newsletter

Get the latest trending sports news daily in your inbox