Confession

They say that confession is good for the soul. Well, it’s my turn. Going into the second half of the NBA season, I have not seen one complete game this season. Sure, a quarter here, an entire half there. But an entire game from start to finish? Nope.

Why? To quote Tom Hagen from the movie “The Godfather,” “…take this into consideration.”

First, the positive. Today’s players are taking the game athletically to the next level. They play hard and you see the spirit of competing most nights.

But then there are the other nights.

My first beef with the league starts with two words: Load Management. The technical definition is the strategic resting of healthy star players, popularized by teams like the San Antonio Spurs around 2010 to reduce physiological stress, prevent injury, and maximize performance for playoffs. My POV on that is while the treatment and care of players has improved medically, it has to be noted that in the first 62 years the NBA named an MVP, 32 of the recipients logged at least 80 games and only two winners (Bob Cousy in 1956-57 and Bill Walton in 1977-78) appeared in fewer than 90% of his team’s games. In fact, in a study conducted by the league itself, one of the doctor’s that conducted the study (Dr. Christina Mack) indicated that she “did not see a lower injury rate when players rested.”

Between the 1990s to today, the average number of games missed per season by those defined as star players rose considerably. In the ‘90s, it was 10.6 games. In the 2020s, it’s 23.9 games. That’s just under 30% of the league 82 regular season game schedule.

Understand, I am from the era when stars like Michael Jordan played 87% of the possible regular season games for his career. Out of his 15 years in the league, he played all 82 games in nine different seasons. To quote Jordan, …"You know, I never wanted to miss a game because it was an opportunity to prove. It was something that I felt like the fans were there watching me play. I want to impress that guy way up on top who probably worked his [butt] off to get a ticket or to get money to buy the ticket."

Yet another reason why I like Mike.

My other concern with the league is teams tanking. Simply put, tanking is the practice of teams losing intentionally to ensure a better draft pick. One of the more blatant examples of this occurred in April 2023, when the Mavericks were still mathematically alive for a play-in spot but owed a top-10-protected 2023 first-round pick to the Knicks. Dallas elected to rest Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic against the San Antonio Spurs in its last game. In the previous game against the Chicago Bulls, Irving did not play and Doncic played 12 minutes. The Mavericks lost both games.

I’ll just say two things. The last #1 pick that was on a championship team was Andrew Wiggins, who was the #1 pick by Cleveland in 2014. By the way, he got his ring with Golden State. He wasn’t even a starter on that squad.

And excuse me for being a competitive purist, but to quote Herm Edwards, “…you play to win the game…Hello?” To paraphrase Sam Rothstein from the movie Casino, otherwise, what’s the point?

For me, at the end of the day, it comes down to effective overall roster management, chemistry, coaching, and luck.

In either case, I am ending my unofficial “boycott.” For me, the season has just begun.