Adam Silver's Argument For Heroine Abuse In Professional Sports

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"It is a significant issue for our league."

"Decisions of this kind do not merely implicate issues of player health and team performance on the court; they also can affect fans and business partners, impact our reputation, and damage the perception of our game."

These statements were made by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver in a memo delivered to teams on Monday. Were they regarding a situation that was as detrimental to the league as the rampant cocaine abuse in the 1970s and 1980s? No.

Were they in response to a rise in physical play in the 1990s that led to a more brutal brand of basketball that was curbed in the mid and late 1990s? No.

These comments were made in response to a new epidemic that is allegedly plaguing the league: the resting …show more content…

Silver's memo about teams resting players also calls for "significant penalties" if teams do not follow league rules for reporting player injuries and illnesses. The commissioner stated it is "unacceptable for owners to be uninvolved or defer decision-making on this topic to others in their organizations".

What is the NBA's argument for such resistance on prohibiting resting players?

One layer of this onion is how upset it makes the NBA's television partners. That part can be understood. ESPN/ABC and TNT pay a lot of money to broadcast NBA games. The current deal the NBA has with its partners adds up to nearly $3 billion. Multiple games are broadcast per week on both ESPN/ABC, TNT, and to a lesser extent NBA …show more content…

Show me a graph. Show me "Joe NBA Fan" on camera saying that the rest of NBA players is upsetting them.

I have not seen such things, so invoking the idea that "fans are upset" is lazy.

If the fans have anything to be upset about, it's that the average cost of an NBA ticket has risen every year since the 2010-2011 season. With new and bigger TV deals coming in, that cost will likely increase again for the 2017-2018 season. As a fan, that's what I'm upset about. The resale market on sites like StubHub or SeatGeek help this problem, but it's not going away anytime soon.

Let's also introduce this argument. If you're a fan of either the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, or Cleveland Cavaliers, you know you're in the position to win a championship this year. If a fan of those teams, for example, wins a championship, I can guarantee you they are really not going to care about a regular season game between the Warriors and Spurs when multiple players were given a day to rest. This is a conversation that will never happen during an NBA Championship parade:

Fan 1: "Dude. I'm still upset about that game in March when we couldn't see Steph, Draymond, and Klay beat the

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