If you’re an NBA fan and go to a game, you expect to see star players like Lebron James and Steph Curry. Sometimes, though, you go to the game and those star players aren’t playing because their teams are resting them. The NBA needs to do something about teams resting their best players in order to get a better draft pick or resting them for the playoffs. It’s destroying the game I love to watch.
NBA greats like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson never complained about needing rest. But on an April 10 game against the Miami Heat, Lebron James decided he did not want to play because he needed rest. While James has played in more games than anyone in the NBA today because he’s made it to six straight NBA Finals, it’s no excuse for him not to play. If he was able to show up to Club Liv in Miami Beach and work out the next day, he and the other star players should be able to play in every game.
I went to a Miami Heat game in 2012 against the Detroit Pistons. I was so excited because I was going to be able to see the “Big Three” – Chris Bosh, Lebron James and Dwyane Wade – play live. But on my way to the game I got a Miami Heat update on my phone that said Lebron James and Dwyane Wade weren’t playing. I was upset that I was not able to see two of my favorite players live because they said they needed rest. It was ridiculous, because I had just paid a lot of money to see a great team play and they weren’t even going to use their best players.
In the last regular season game of the year on April 12, teams like the Atlanta Hawks, Washington Wizards and the Brooklyn Nets decided to rest their players. For the Hawks and Wizards it was because they were locked into the seed in the playoffs for the Eastern Conference and for the Nets it was in order to get a better draft pick. The Nets, Wizards and Hawks affected the playoff picture because the Bulls, Pacers and Heat were battling for the last two playoff spots and none of the games were competitive.
Fans of these teams should be disappointed that their teams don’t play hard every game and don’t fight till the end no matter what’s at stake. The NBA needs to something about excessively resting their players or they will lose fans.
