Lebron soft as shit

[removed]

It's not that simple. Teams sit their entire cast of important players all on the same day for no reason. They are throwing games and more or less losing on purpose instead of staggering rest days.

Fans pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars to go to a basketball game and they are not getting the product they paid for. Injuries are luck of the draw. Steph being a healthy scratch is one thing but Steph, Klay, Dray, Poole, Wiggins, etc all healthy scratches is fucked. Why did those fans waste $700 for that?

Everyone blames the league like they should just shorten the season but you chop off 25% of the season and players should lose 25% of their salaries as well. They will never accept it.

edited out a slightly smart aleck first sentence.

Nah dudes need to just play if they aren’t actually injured. They just extended the season window a few years ago so there’s already way less back to backs than there used to be. These dudes are making millions of dollars playing a game because of the fans.

I bought tickets last year when the warriors came to Detroit because I’ve wanted to see Steph and klay play for years and Steph was on one of the best stretches of his career leading up to that game. Then not even an hour and a half before game time the warriors announced Steph klay and Draymond were all out for rest. They play at Detroit once a year. Im a grown man so it’s whatever I had a few beers with my friends and still enjoyed the game but I’m sure there was tons little kids there that day who wanted to see their favorite players and families who spent a nice chunk of cash on tickets. It’s bullshit and a slap in the face to the fans. Keep in mind this game was in the middle of November, it’s not even like they were resting up for the playoffs.

If they really NEED a rest day at least announce it more than 2 hours before the game so people don’t waste money on tickets.

Just went to a Cardinals game at Wrigley this summer. Of course I was hoping to see Pujols and Molina play but the only day we could go was a day game after a night game. Figured both of them would be resting, especially when I saw they played the previous game. I was actually hoping for the Cubs to tie or take the lead in the late innings so maybe Pujols could pinch hit.

[removed]

I’m sorry, but basketball is vastly different. People can and do absolutely buy tickets to see individual superstars as opposed to teams. Not to say certain franchises aren’t popular draws, but nobody ever gave a damn about coming out to see the Cleveland Cavs or Philadelphia 76ers. You went to see Lebron and Allen Iverson do spectacular things.

There are plenty of people who are fans of players and not teams. Most folks have their team, and then their favorite players.

Maybe you were a Cavs fan and are ride or die for Lebron so when the Lakers come to town you shell out big. Maybe your kid loves watching Steph shoot threes but lives in Atlanta.

Plenty of scenarios where a person would want to go watch a single player.

[removed]

Let’s try r/MaliciousCompliance

When are we releasing all inmates charged with marijuana possession???

[removed]

[removed]

See: NHL. For YEARS, every time the Pittsburgh Penguins played in Winnipeg, first Mario Lemieux, then later Sidney Crosby, never seemed to make the trip due to “injury”. Even though they often played the game before the Jets, or the game after.

I flew to St. Louis to see the Cardinals at home for my first time in 2006. A week earlier Pujols hurt his oblique and was out for a month. He was my favorite player and I was bummed I didnt get to see him. I wholeheartedly understand wanting to see your favorite players, but you aren't buying a ticket to LeBron James. You are buying a ticket to the Los Angeles Lakers. And in your example you got to see what you paid for. In the example from this article, the Heat won the damn game, which is the goal. Fining a team who fielded a winning squad against another NBA team for their coaching and roster decisions is a massive overreach and sets a dangerous precedent. The players aren't slaves who "must" play whenever the league wants them to.

The main issue is that not every game is important, which is why players take games off. NFL doesn’t have this problem because there are only 17 games and you have to win as many as possible to make the playoffs, so rarely is a team in position to let their best players sit out a couple times. And if they are, they either have one of the best or worst records in the league and it typically only happens last week or two of the season (aka minimal impact).

IMO if NBA can’t/won’t reduce the number of games, then they should use a format similar to Latin American soccer leagues. Have two parts of the season (Apertura and Clausura) that each have their own champion and then those champions play for the title at the very end. This would make all the games more important because instead of an 82 game single season there would be two 41 game mini-seasons (or realistically less than that to make room for extra playoff games) which would mean sitting out a couple games could actually be the different between making the playoffs or not, which is typically not the case now with so many games on the schedule, and is why they do it so often.

This split format would also kind of curve tanking because they could set it up so that it only looks at the worst record out of the two for the lottery or something so a team could potentially secure a lottery pick in the Apertura and then actually try to win in the Clausura, as opposed to simply trying to be terrible the entire year for the same outcome, which is what they do now.

“Haywood Highsmith is questionable with a left quadriceps contusion”

Poetry. The whole thing is absolute poetry, but this one : <chef’s kiss>

He has a bruise on his thigh …

Belichek did that for years too. Listed basically every player that was midly sore after practice as probable and that was a lot of them.

Brady with his throwing shoulder listed as probable for multiple seasons straight. Got to the point where they just removed the probable designation.

They extended the season window to get rid of 4 games in 5 nights 5 years ago

Idk. My friend once paid $800 for super nice birthday tickets to watch Lebron play when the Lakers were coming to town. Turned out to be a rest day for Lebron that was announced a couple hours before tip off. If the Lakers had been fined for that, my friend for one, would have been super okay with it

Men's soccer is like that because of market forces. The US players are competing against guys from other countries. Federal law (Title IX of the Civil Rights Act) never had anything to do with it. In Europe clubs often form their own vocational high schools (academies) and players get advanced training from early days, play against pros on youth squads, and the best are thrust into competition sometimes as high schoolers. The rest never go to college and are full time pros on minor-league clubs right off the bat.

For decades the college stop has been known as the major reason why US players never make it big in major foreign leagues, except as goalkeepers. First, it takes two to four years off their pro development while they fumble around part-time against low-level amateurs. The NCAA rules do contribute here. College years limit player growth with strict practice rules, a short season that only lasts a few months, and on-field differences, not to mention lost earnings.

The best US players now find clubs in Europe and go to their youth squads or academies. US clubs are forming their own academies too, to keep up and keep young talent from going overseas.

Same issue as the US pro sports, honestly. The NBA and NFL make rules that essentially force young players to go to college. Otherwise, most wouldn't bother. Those sports are popular only because the college game's popularity predates the pro game's.

MLB, historically, plucked or drafted most players out of high school. College was for winding down careers and getting degrees, until the 70s, when they found that baseball skills developed well in college. Today most players go that route, even though high schoolers now turn out as good. There are 299 baseball schools just in DI.

Back in the day, the Broncos got fined by the NFL for not putting someone on the injured list.

The next game, HC Mike Shananan put a ton of players on it for little things, including Shannon Sharpe with laryngitis.

They did extend the season window.

It literally just happened.

I mean, look at it from the league’s perspective though. Their job is to do what’s best for the game, not individual players or teams. A huge problem for fans of the NBA is that at any point, the all-star player you came to see could be “out” for that night’s game for a rest day. Imagine going onto stubhub and paying a small fortune to take your kids to see Lebron play once in your/their lifetime, he’s not on the injury report, but then he never gets in the game - it’s infuriating as a fan and feels like a middle finger from millionaires to the working class.

The real answer is that the league should either cut the number of games (will never happen because although it may seem like I’m “on the side” of the league, I also realize they’re beholden to greedy billionaires who would never leave revenue on the table for player safety) or lengthen the season to provide for more rest days. But until that happens, it’s in fans’ and the league’s interests to acknowledge that players randomly sitting out for unannounced rest games is a problem and discourage teams from doing it.

Forfeit the game and cancel it. Reason #866457 NBA ratings have been circling the toilet, players are such divas they don't even fucking play the game. See also any team with a secure playoff spot.