The arguments when an NBA player decides to do load management and miss a significant part of the season always remain. The intention of this is so that players can have enough rest during the regular season to reach their optimum level in the playoffs.
There are many problems when it comes to this issue, with fans being the main victim of these events. Just imagine being a fan who spent half of their salary to get an NBA ticket, or being a sports gambler who put money on a team, just for later to see that the main player of that roster is not playing because of ‘rest’.
A perfect example of this is Kawhi Leonard, who missed a national televised game due 'rest' only one week after the season started, an action which many people criticized by the two-time NBA champion.
Leonard missed 22 games last season with the Raptors due load management, and it ended up working because ‘The Klaw’ was able to peak at the right time averaging 28.1 points per game in the playoffs, leading Toronto to their first ever championship.
The problem here is the fact that Kawhi is in a much tougher conference this year, which means that he will have to cut that number down to 11 games maximum, if the Clippers want to aspire to be the best team in the West.
The NBA on TNT Inside the NBA crew weighted in on the load management topic, and as you may expect, Charles Barkley had something to say against it.
‘’One of the things that bothers me about load management is… Why can’t you just play 30 minutes instead of taking the whole game off? Coches and players making that decision don’t even know what the load is going to be, they are just predicting it’’, Barkley said.
Another concern about this situation is that there are bottom-dueling teams that are following the load management, which they shouldn’t. If you are a team that doesn’t even have chances of making the postseason, players on that roster should be playing as many minutes as they can, in order to get better.
An example of this is RJ Barrett from the Knicks, who currently leads the league in minutes played averaging 37.1 minutes per game.