Tom White wrote:Do all these supposed "injuries" this late in the season, and considering the way the team has recently been playing, seem a bit suspect to anyone/everyone? I thought the NBA was cracking down on using "injuries" as a way to rest players, but looking around the league it seems a lot of teams just ignored that.
Nah. Just, the incentive is lesser in most cases to play through the pain, and 75+ games and a training camp into the season, everybody is hurting. As teams fall out of the playoffs, there's no benefit to playing through pain or injuries. As playoff seeds are locked up, there's no benefit to playing through, and especially as teams are gearing up for a possible playoff run still to be made.
As for the league cutting down, I think they focused more on "game day" type stuff when guys just weren't announced until tipoff as being out, or guys didn't even make trips to rest up, but not to receive treatment, per se. Also, why they keep calling it "load management" now instead of just "rest", or as Popovich used to put down for Duncan, Parker, and Manu, "DNP - Old"
