Adam Silver sent a stern warning to teams who have been resting its players and has threatened “significant penalties.” At practice today, LeBron James was asked about Silver’s message and argued that Gregg Popovich has been resting players for years and it has only become a problem now that LeBron has taken a few games off to rest.
From Cleveland.com:
“I don’t understand why it’s become a problem now. Because I started to sit out a couple games? It’s absolutely the case. C’mon, man, you guys know the real. Pop has been doing this for years and everyone was like, You know what? That’s the smartest thing Pop has ever done. Give his guys a couple days off and they win five championships, it’s the smartest thing.
But some of the coaches in our league don’t have the stature that Pop has and our coach doesn’t have it so he gets killed for it. So, I gotta keep winning to help my coach have a reason why he can sit his players.”
LeBron, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love all sat during this past Saturday’s primetime game against the Clippers, which prompted Doc Rivers to say that it’s “not cool” for the Cavs to rest its stars. Jeff Van Gundy even went as far as saying that the decision to rest players should be a “prosecutable offense.”
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