Steve Kerr doesn’t lack self-awareness. Similar to what commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this week, he knows that sitting his stars on the back end of back-to-backs isn’t good for the NBA product, even if he feels he it’s best for his team.
Kerr addressed the issue honestly during his press conference before Saturday’s clash with the Spurs, a game that Klay Thompson will be rested for with the season finale on Sunday.
“I agree with the commissioner,” Kerr said. “I think people pay a lot of money to watch the stars play, but we also know a lot more now about the body. We have a lot more information about how to prevent injuries. So every team has got a team of medical people advising us to sit our stars out for 10 games a year.”
While Silver didn’t say that he has a great solution for the time being, Kerr offered one up.
“To me what makes the most sense is cutting back to a 72 game schedule. Take 10 games off, get more time to rest in between games. I think you’ll get buy in from the teams to play their guys more often.
“It would require everybody to understand the financial ramifications. I think you could argue if it’s a better product you’re going to get better media rights deals, and a 72 game season might result in more money for the cap anyway. Less from gate receipts, but maybe more from media rights and in the end everybody could win.
“That’s just me guessing, I don’t have any data to back that up. That would be my preference.”
Silver mentioned that he believed the implementation of the play-in tournament would create an added incentive structure for teams who would otherwise be out of the playoff picture to play their stars. So far it doesn’t seem to be having that effect, perhaps in large part because most of the league’s biggest stars are on teams with more secure playoff situations. Silver did address the elimination of games as a possibility.
“I also have said in the past, if we have too many games, that’s something we should look at as well,” Silver said. “It’s something, as we sit down and we’re looking at new media deals and looking at a new collective bargaining agreement, we will be studying. There wasn’t any banging of the table or anything like that. From my discussions with players, they recognize it’s an issue, too. The style of the game has changed in terms of the impact on their bodies. I think we’ve got to constantly assess and look at a marketplace going forward and say, what’s the best way to present our product and over how long a season?”
Kerr reiterated that if the schedule remains at 82 games, resting players will continue to be a no-brainer.
“I know that especially as [Stephen Curry] gets older,” Kerr said, “even the thought of playing him 82 games doesn’t make sense because it just wears him down, and then by the time the playoffs start if he’s worn down, what are we doing?”