David Stern says 'shame on the Brooklyn Nets' for resting players, and he's spot on

Former NBA commissioner David Stern is enjoying life after basketball. He doesn’t miss commissionership — or so he said on USA Today’s “NBA A to Z” podcast this week. He’s keeping busy with various business ventures.

But he’s not too busy to get off a few toasty takes about the laughing stock of the NBA, the Brooklyn Nets.

When asked for his “updated perspective” on the issue of NBA teams resting players during the regular season, Stern took a very reasonable viewpoint. He opined that the schedule changes coming next year will help, and discussed the possibility that someday there will be technology, rather than a coach, to scientifically determine whether a player needs to rest. And then … well, he basically went off on the Nets, who rested starters for the final game of the regular season against the Chicago Bulls, who needed to win to secure a playoff spot.

“I have no idea what was in the mind of the executives of the Brooklyn Nets,” Stern told USA Today. “None. There was sort of an agreement we had with our fans — and the players picked up on it too — if you’re playing in a game of consequence, that has an impact, which is as good as it gets, [then you shouldn’t rest players].

“Here we are, the Brooklyn Nets are out of the running. They have the lowest record in the sport. But they have an opportunity to weigh in on the final game with respect to Chicago. And they sit their starters? Really? It’s inexcusable in my view. I don’t think the commissioner maybe can, or even should, do anything about it. But shame on the Brooklyn Nets. They broke the pact.”

The Bulls won that game handily and clinched a playoff berth. The Heat, meanwhile, also won on the season’s final night, but missed out on the playoffs because they didn’t get help from Brooklyn.

Stern continued: “I think I’m going to give the Nets the benefit of the doubt that they did it without recognizing what they were doing. That’s all. The coach wanted to join the club: ‘I’ll show you, I’ll rest my players [too].’ I think I was listening to [Boston Celtics TV commentator] Tommy Heinsohn that night, saying, ‘What, are they resting them to give them strength to empty their lockers?’”

Stern is spot on with his criticism. Every other team in the league had a reason to rest players, or even shut them down for the season. Clubs like the Warriors, Spurs and Cavaliers wanted to keep players fresh for the playoffs. On the other end of the spectrum, the Lakers and Suns wanted to tank for a better draft pick. But the Nets? What was their reason? They weren’t in playoff contention. In fact, they had the worst record in the league. But they didn’t have a draft pick to tank for because four years ago, the made one of the worst trades in NBA history.

Brooklyn’s decision to rest players was anti-competitive. Almost every decision by an NBA team to hold out stars is made in the long-term competitive interest of the franchise. The Nets’ decision was one of the few that was not.

You can argue that Brooklyn wanted to preempt any major injury to a key player who they hoped to have back next year. But that argument is flawed. In that case, what makes the resting acceptable and rational for the final game of the season but not the penultimate one? Or the third-to-last? Or the fourth-to-last? Or every other game since the Nets were eliminated from playoff contention over a month before the end of the season?

On the topic of resting in general, Stern supported current commissioner Adam Silver’s handling of the issue (and of “virtually everything” else). This season shed more controversial light on the “rest epidemic,” as some have called it, when both the Warriors and Cavs sat their best players for prime-time national TV games. Silver sent a memo to league owners that called it “an extremely significant issue for our league,” urged owners to be involved in decisions on whether to rest players, and warned of “significant penalties.”

While Stern was still commissioner in 2012, his NBA fined the Spurs for resting players toward the back end of a road trip. At the time, Stern said in a statement that the Spurs “did a disservice to the league and our fans.”

The NBA will extend its regular season next season to eliminate some of the back-to-backs that compel coaches to rest players. Stern told USA Today that he thinks this will help:

“I think that the lengthening of the season, which I think is on tap for next season, will pace the schedule even better than the improvements that were made this year,” he said. “Someday — I’m not saying it’s going to be tomorrow — there will be a way to measure recovery in a certain way that it will be medically demonstrated whether a player needs rest or not, not at the whim of a coach to decide that this player needs rest on the road, on the one game that they’re playing in a city in the other conference. [That day is] coming, but [the pressure is] going to be greatly alleviated by the schedules.”