Breaks breaking down all the biggest NBA storylines. So the Heat Check. The Heat Check with SISA, the best podcast covering all the trauma around the association. Moving on.
It has been a long six weeks of nothing.
Happening except for James Harden and Damian Lillard holding their team's hosts trying to jump shit.
But we finally have about a little bit of.
Actual news to discuss. I'm not talking about PJ Washington returning to the board. I am not talking about the.
San Antonio Spurs continuing to build up goodwill by giving.
Campaign an outright release so that you can go with a contending team. I am talking about structural NBA news that we are breaking down. Thank you to Adam Silver because our fearless commissioner has now decided to take on the subject of loads management and tanking head on becaues.
It's face, it has been terrible.
It's been kind of killing the league's vibe for at least in terms of in person paying customers for a decade. It's one thing to look forward to watching a February Clippers versus Sixers game on TV only to find out Kawhi and Embiid are sitting there in street clothes.
But it's another thing to check the calendar for months.
Take your kid and promise that kid that they are going to see Joel Embi. You get nose lead seats to see your hero, and then you show up to find the guy that you.
See and you paid the seed.
Take the day off until you can't even find out, until you got your first hot dog.
In your mouth. That's why Kobe is beloved.
The dude is going to play through anything when he was playing through a broken hand, through broken anything, just to keep the fans happy.
But that's not happening anymore. So Adam Silver had to step in.
By the way, quick aside, This happened to me last year when I wanted to see Jaw and Desmond Baine play against the Washington Wizards.
I hate Capitol One Arena. It fucking sucks. It's like a best buy in there. But for Jaw and for Desmond Bane, I would do it.
And you know what I paid for floor seats just to watch David fucking Roddy.
Do you know how bad David Roddy is? Do you know how slow David Roddy is? This is not a ricochet shot to David Roddy, but for few hundred dollars per seat.
I did not want to watch David Roddy and Steven Adams in the block disgusting.
And I didn't.
It's like going to Momofuku and then you go to the bathroom and you find out it's actually a panda express.
So yes, I get that this is a problem. Enter Adam Silver, who came up with this.
According to WOJ, the NBA's Competition Committee recommended a plan that the league's Board of Governors is expected to approved Wednesday. It would ultimately give the league office authority for greater oversight over disciplined for miss games, and an ability to find teams over one million dollars for each instance of violating resting rules. This has got to be aimed, by the way what the league is calling star players? What
is a star player? The MBA is defining a star player as someone who's made the All Star or All NBA teams in three any of the three previous seasons. God damn Bradley Beal, you are fucked. Here are adams five.
Rules for fixing tanking. Teams must manage their roster to ensure that no more than one star player is unavailable for the same game. How is that gonna work?
Because Paul George and Kawhi Leonard are injured all the time simultaneously.
Bron and ad more like Kawhi and.
PG or m Bidenharden, teams must ensure that star players are available for nationally televised games and in season tournament games.
Adam Silver loves that n season tournament.
Boy, before it even gets started, He's making sure guys don't dog it. We saw this, everybody thought it was going to be an off day for star players. In the same way that Man United and Arsenal and Premier League team send their B teams to compete in the FA Cup for English soccer. But the difference is between that and the NBA. The NBA has much larger rosters that soccer teams control. Next point, teams must maintain a balance between the number of one game absences for a star player.
In home games and road games, with the preference for those absences to happen in home games. So I believe one of the examples.
Of this was that Steph Clay and Draymond all played on like a Tuesday in Golden State and then one day later they all rested in Denver.
YEP. Can't do that.
You got to rest them all in San Francisco. Penalize the home fans and not the road fans. I don't hate that, especially if you're living in a suburb and you're driving you and your whole family to see your favorite player on Golden State and then he doesn't show up.
That's just bad for business.
Next point, teams must refrain from any long term.
Shutdown or near shutdown when a.
Star player starts participating in games or plays in a material materially reduced role in circumstances affecting the integrity of the game. This is what we call a direct shot at the Portland Trailblazers who ended up shutting down Damian Lillard and pretty much every player on their team except for consecutive ten day contract guys like Drew got ten day God you banks to get Shaden.
Sharp and Scoot Henderson. That's what we call the Dame Lollard tank rule.
No more shutting down superstars to lose games at the end of the season.
If I am Portland would be.
Fine with paying ten million dollars for the rights of Scoot Anderson or Victor Wambayama.
I don't think that's going to change the damn thing.
Next point from Adam Silver in his league office, teams must ensure that healthy players resting for a game are present and visible to fans. No more James Harden hooka parties. No more if you're not there, you're sitting on the bench. No more Kawhi going dark when he's out of a game. What is the penalty for violating these tanking slash load management rules? First defense one hundred K, second offense two hundred and fifty K, Third offense one million dollars for
each individual violation. Interestingly, Adam Silver also instituted what I call the Lebron exception. The MBA will allow pre approved designated back to back allowances for players who are thirty five years old on opening night or have career workloads of thirty four thousand regular season minutes or one thousand regular season playoff game minutes combined. That exception impacts Lebron and Stuff, but not Kawhi or ad Fyi.
Here are the only seven.
Players who can rest on the back end of a back to back with no penalty. Lebron, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Chris Paul DeMar DeRozan, Mike Conley, and James Harden. That is it, and like clockwork, the league approve what it's calling the Player Participation Policy on Wednesday. It's gonna be interesting to see how teams try to evade this rule,
because we know that they will. I suspect that we're gonna see a lot of Kawhi Leonard getting five to seven minutes of the play and then sitting out, which doesn't technically violate the league rules, but kind of fucking sucks and fucks the vibe up from a betting standpoint as well, which might actually help you if you know that this is a possibility, and this is a big thing considering the league is fully in bed with sportsbooks right now, I'm not sure how this is gonna play out,
but it is going to be fascinating to see. Nonetheless, one thing that it won't do is make it more likely for me to throw a paycheck six weeks out in advance to see a player.
There's probably a fifty to fifty chance that you will see. Gonna be fun. Gonna be fun to see how this plays out.