Old Man Yells At Cloud

[Who]

I've seen it have to some value for older players and perhaps injury prone players. The older player I think of is Shaq. The injury prone guy I wonder about is Kawhi.

What I do not like is this being extended to lots of other players who not have a specific need for it. Fans pay a huge amount of money for tickets to watch these guys play. They have a responsibility to show up and play (if they are able to play). It is completely disrepectful to fans to sit out games when you are fit enough to play.

[angryguy77]

The load management is....we a load when you take the paying customers in account.
It cost me hundreds to take my boys to go see these guys play. You spend all that money only to find out the team is accepting an L because they have to rest their players.

I get the sport is hard on the body, but people are not playing to see the bench warmers get smoked.
If there's no injury/family emergency, they should be playing. If they can't give you the product you paid for, you should get a portion of the ticket price back(Not a snowballs chance in hell for that to happen I know).

[Ed Monix]

I love Charles Barkley, but some of his curmudgeonous rants get tiresome. The load management stuff in particular annoys me.

Barkley of all people should understand that not playing through injuries is a good idea. When you look at his NBA career, he didn’t even come into the league until 21. His rookie year he spent 80% of games coming off the bench. By the time he got to Houston at 33 years old, he was no longer the same athlete.

Barkley only really had 11 elite seasons in the NBA. In the modern NBA, players are coming into the league and starting at 19, and expecting to stay at the same physical level into their mid 30’s.

Guys like Barkley lost tens of millions of dollars simply because they were told to walk it off.

Look at the time frame here.  How many 19 year olds were entering the league in 1984?  Heck, how many underclassmen were entering the league in 1980s?  What was the average career span for guys that entered the league then?

Conditioning & nutrition were a lot different back then. Not to mention medical science in general.  Some injuries that were considered career killers back then can now remedied in today's day & age.  We know so much more now.

Trying to trash Barkley's career isn't quite the flex you thought it was.  Only "11 elite seasons" and making it to your mid 30s, especially the way Barkley was built, is an accomplishment and not a dimishment.

What are you talking about?

Firstly, I love Barkley, I prefaced my post with that. Secondly, your post drips of (unprovoked) aggressiveness…yet you’re are a CelticsStrong Moderator!?

If that’s the environment you want to perpetuate, I will gladly move on.

👋🏻

[No Nickname]

Count me as someone who doesn't get the load management excuse for missing games. Are those players that sit out games for load management, also practicing and traveling? Shouldn't load management include not traveling with the team, practicing, and playing in a game? I always found playing the game to be the actual break from the wear and tear of practice (and traveling).

Yeah, that is how Phil Jackson did load management in the second three-peat. He gave MJ, Pippen, Rodman, Ron Harper practices off to avoid wear and tear. They played the games. They got rest during and instead of practice. Rather than missing games.

Imagine if Larry had been load-managed a bit more.  If Reggie Lewis played more as a rookie and 2nd year.  If Bias had been around to lighten the load.

Heck, if Larry had not been so cheap and just hired someone to build his mom's driveway instead of blowing out his back shoveling dirt himself.

Maybe the 1988-90 seasons would have ended with championships.

[michigan adam]

Ithink your final point is much more relevant than load management.  Coaches need to load manage more in each game to where the stars get 28-30 minutes most nights and amp up very occasionally to 35 in a tight game rather than 35+ every night and then every 10th game off. Develops players better that way too with more consistent minutes every game, even if in single digits, rather than DNP's and then 20+ minutes once in a while.  Bench players need to be more ready to play due to fouls and injuries anyhow...
 

[Donoghus]

I love Charles Barkley, but some of his curmudgeonous rants get tiresome. The load management stuff in particular annoys me.

Barkley of all people should understand that not playing through injuries is a good idea. When you look at his NBA career, he didn’t even come into the league until 21. His rookie year he spent 80% of games coming off the bench. By the time he got to Houston at 33 years old, he was no longer the same athlete.

Barkley only really had 11 elite seasons in the NBA. In the modern NBA, players are coming into the league and starting at 19, and expecting to stay at the same physical level into their mid 30’s.

Guys like Barkley lost tens of millions of dollars simply because they were told to walk it off.

Look at the time frame here.  How many 19 year olds were entering the league in 1984?  Heck, how many underclassmen were entering the league in 1980s?  What was the average career span for guys that entered the league then?

Conditioning & nutrition were a lot different back then. Not to mention medical science in general.  Some injuries that were considered career killers back then can now remedied in today's day & age.  We know so much more now.

Trying to trash Barkley's career isn't quite the flex you thought it was.  Only "11 elite seasons" and making it to your mid 30s, especially the way Barkley was built, is an accomplishment and not a dimishment.

What are you talking about?

Firstly, I love Barkley, I prefaced my post with that. Secondly, your post drips of (unprovoked) aggressiveness…yet you’re are a CelticsStrong Moderator!?

If that’s the environment you want to perpetuate, I will gladly move on.

👋🏻

I disagreed with a few of your statements.  I thought context was left out when factoring in the time and place and the "only 11 elite seasons" and "lost tens of millions of dollars" were shots at him. 

Disagreement doesn't necessarily equate aggressiveness. 

Even though I'm a moderator, I'm allowed to have an opinion.  That's been apparent for years as people have seen with Roy, myself, & others.

If you're upset, I'm sorry but if you say something I disagree with, more often than not, I'm going to speak up.

[gift]

dude didn't win a single nba cup in 16 years.

[green_bballers13]

dude didn't win a single nba cup in 16 years.

Yup. He was a very good basketball player and has become increasingly famous due to his tv persona. Rings matter.

[Roy H.]

dude didn't win a single nba cup in 16 years.

Yup. He was a very good basketball player and has become increasingly famous due to his tv persona. Rings matter.

Eh.  Barkley was an MVP that carried his team to the Finals.  Karl Malone falls into the same category.  These are legitimately great players who ran into the Jordan/Pippen buzz saw.

[obnoxiousmime]

The root cause is still that there are too many meaningless regular season games. The owners and players won't reduce the number of games due to the loss of revenue, so this is the situation we're in. Silver and Dumars (representative of the owners) are trying to put a good face on it because they're in the middle of a TV negotiation (along with their gambling partnerships) and load management has started to negatively impact the product. As a group, of course the owners want stars to play more, but individually they want their own teams to win. That's why they need it to be fairly applied across the league that resting won't get too extreme.

It's also a question of what kind of league you want it to be. Making the regular season more important would mean younger players increase in value. Keeping the regular season less important and keeping this current playoff system means older players have a better shot at still being there in the end. For example, I don't think LeBron is a serious title-threatening number one anymore due to his age. However, the league can still viably market him as one because a team like the Lakers can fumble around the regular season, make some good trades, then win two playoff series and appear like they have a shot when actually it's very unlikely.

The OP also is forgetting about modern surgical procedures that have made longer careers more possible. It used to be the case that certain injuries just hampered you for the rest of your career. Players can now come back from serious injuries, and the league increasing in size means there are more teams where these older guys can be the "star" on a bad team. For example, guys like Rozier and Hayward can be "stars" and paid big money to be on a bad team, but they'd probably be bench guys on good teams.