Guess what San Antonio Spurs, you are not the Los Angeles Lakers.
Therefore, you shall be punished.
In what will most likely be the stupidest penalty in the NBA since punishing bench players for helping out Steve Nash during the 2007 Western Conference Finals Foul Heard Round the World, the evil commissioner known as David Stern is going to fine and/or suspend Greg Popovich for sending most of his starters home as opposed to using them to play the Heat in a nationally-televised game. While it had been only the Heat’s 2nd game in around a week, the Spurs had been playing a 5-game stretch in around that same period of time.
Never mind that the stupid NBA season is now 82 games as opposed to last seasons’ seemingly-more-exciting 66 games. Never mind that the Spurs are among the oldest teams in all of sports (Tim Duncan’s rookie season occurred when LeBron James was only 13 years old). Never mind that we have not even hit December yet, making this matchup against the Heat rather meaningless. This would be similar to Bud Selig getting mad because the Yankees skipped C.C. Sabathia’s May start against the Red Sox.
Punishing the Spurs for this action is purely a commissioner going too far in his reign. He has no right dictating how a coach runs his team. He has no right telling the coach when the right time to rest all the starters is. And the dumbest part in all this is that Poppa has done this before, several times last season when the games clustered too closely. So why is it an issue now?
Because the Spurs were playing the Miami Heat.
No other reason.
Aside from the Horry Smash, the San Antonio Spurs had always played with humility, dignity, and class. But because the game was televised and it was against the NBA’s new favorite team, they are being looked at as a villain for throwing the bench against them.
David Stern, until your scheduling provides a little more fairness, and until you can cut down on the amount of games per season, older teams are going to have to rest every so often in order to survive playing basketball from October to potentially June---it is that simple. You can punish them for resting, but it is inevitable, they will find a way to rest, regardless of whom they are playing.
P.S. David Stern, would you be upset if they rested their starters against the Charlotte Bobcats?
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