The Clippers benefited from the Cavaliers‘ decision to rest their stars over the weekend, routing Cleveland’s reserves by a 30-point margin on Saturday night. However, Clippers head coach and president of basketball operations Doc Rivers suggests that the NBA ought to do something to address situations where one of a team’s two back-to-back games is nationally televised.
“We have to protect our product,” Rivers said, per Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com. “It’s hard. It’s impossible, if you actually knew what went into scheduling, but the look of back-to-back ABC national games — it’s not good. … I think we have to treat those games like they’re afternoon games, and you don’t play the night before, and then you don’t play the next night after.”
As the NBA considers how to deal with the issue of teams resting healthy players, let’s round up a few more odds and ends from around the league…
- In his latest blog post for Eurohoops.net, CSKA Moscow star Milos Teodosic once again suggested that he’ll seriously consider signing with an NBA team this summer. For him to seriously consider an NBA team, that club would have to meet his “competitive ambitions” on the court in addition to making a competitive contract offer, Teodosic writes.
- One third of the NBA’s teams hired new coaches in the 2016 offseason, but stability has reigned since then, writes Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. Assuming no coach is fired in the next few weeks, 2016/17 will be the first season in 53 years in which no team has made an in-season coaching change.
- A judge has issued a temporary restraining order against prominent NBA agent Dan Fegan, recently fired by Independent Sports and Entertainment, to prevent him from competing against his former agency, reports Liz Mullen of SportsBusiness Journal (Twitter link). Meanwhile, ISE is working to expand its basketball representation business, either through new hirings or via an agency acquisition, per Mullen.
Teodosic to Nets
back to backs: since money is lost when ratings drop, pass the buck on in the next CBA. ex: If player makes $10MM and coach makes $1MM and they are scheduled for 82 games, if player and coach have a healthy scratch where player doesn’t dress for game, both player and coach lose 1/82 of their annual paycheck. no different than suspension without pay. I bet when they started feeling it in their wallets, they’d play. League needs to meet them halfway though and eliminate the back to backs as much as possible.
Maybe just don’t make it so easy to get a playoff spot? This resting stuff wouldn’t happen if you couldn’t coast into the playoffs at .500. Of course teams like the Warriors and Spurs are gonna take it easy when they basically clinched a spot like 30 games into the season.
Baseball teams test their players after they secure a spot too, but it’s not a problem because no team ever secures a spot until September (the 6th month, about 120 games in).
Baseball teams rest*
How good is Teodosic? Euroleague stats don’t really paint an NBA picture, so what level would he play at in the NBA?
can score very well and get his teammates involved only issue is defense. He will definitely have issues trying to stay in front of the guards in the NBA.
Offensively he could play same as in Europe, but defense will be problem…but, i mean, there are so many trash point guards in NBA so there must be place for such a talented guy like Teodosic.