Texas Chuck wrote:Pisses me off how disposable so many fans treat these guys. All this talk about awards or ducking Joker or load management. Sometimes guys are really hurt. We did this to Ben Simmons and so many people still refuse to walk that back. None of them will walk about their crap on Joel either.
The year Toronto had Kawhi I had to listen to so many hockey fans who also like the Raptors talk about how he shouldn't be resting because I guess it's not what you do in hockey/toxic masculinity.
They didn't understand that we only had Kawhi in the first place because he fought with his old team about his health and also it didn't impact our regular season record at all (went 17-5 without him, we had incredible depth and OG was already a good defender, just shot less 3 and missed the playoffs with his appendix).
If we'd pressed Kawhi to play when he didn't think his knee could handle it, either he refuses and the team maybe becomes a mess vibes-wise, or he does and maybe we don't edge out Philly in that epic series.
The odds of a guy being good enough to be a star and wanting to miss games for no reason are low. I've bought tickets for games and had Embiid and other stars miss them with little injuries, and I didn't watch the Xmas day game where the stars were injured (Butler? Was that Embiid too?) but that's just a thing that happens. You can't make 100% of the money you want all the time. If Embiid misses the playoffs now, how many people are watching Tyrese Maxey vs the Cleveland Cavaliers? That's classic 60-win Hawks NBA TV stuff.