How should the NBA deal with healthy players resting games?

jumpman cbt2 said:

Very.well said. TOP Players in the 80s got less than 3 mio. Usd per season yet they never skipped games to rest without any injury or sickness.
Then in the 90s a,few top players started to receive 10 mio usd per season. Now in 2017 even non all Stars can get 10 mio usd per season while the Superstars often get 20+ mio. Usd.
Yet they have the nerve to rest?
Cut their hilarious salaries.
Without the fans who purchase the tickets, Merchandises, jerseys, gears and Sneakers those Players wouldnt be so arrogant now.

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So who's gonna get the money then? NBA revenue is split evenly between the players and owners. Do you want the billionaire owners to take a larger percentage of the revenue? and like I said earlier, the players aren't making the decisions to rest, its an organizational decision (team execs, GM, owner, coach, player, etc.)

Also, people need to stop bringing up, "Poor Fans" as a reason why this shouldn't be done.

I understand the frustration for someone to spend $$$ on seeing someone and they don't show up.
I understand the frustration for someone to spend $$$ on seeing someone and they don't show up.
I understand the frustration for someone to spend $$$ on seeing someone and they don't show up.
I understand the frustration for someone to spend $$$ on seeing someone and they don't show up.
I understand the frustration for someone to spend $$$ on seeing someone and they don't show up.

But, WHY should a GM/Coach/Player give a damn about that? The goal is to do what YOU feel best puts your team in a position to win when it matters. If you feel that resting your A-List players puts your team in a better position to win, little Johnny crying because he didn't see LeBron doesn't matter to you.

That family won't be there to defend you when you get fired as a GM/Coach nor will that family defend you as a player when you don't have enough rings to be considered the elite of the elite.

This is a harsh reality that people seem to refuse to understand.

shogun said:

People talked about how averaging a triple double wouldn't be done again but how about averaging 48.5 minutes a game like Wilt did? Dude didn't rest during any games.

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We were ignorant as a sports management community when it came to rest back then.

We have to stop saying what players in the past did/didn't do. We all have different mindsets in 2017, so to use, "Older players didn't do it" as a reason why current players shouldn't isn't logical because everyone IN the game thinks differently today.

Little Johnny and the fans pissed off are irrelevant if the teams box office doesn't do tier pricing on tickets based on the quality of the opponent and the stars on the opposing teams.

Charge a flat rate ticket wise for all 29 opponents. Meaning it costs the same to see the Bucks when they come to town as it does to see the Cavs if you buy from the teams box office and it's less of an issue. But when it costs $20 to see your team play the bucks but $150 to sit in those same seats when the Cavs come to town and the main attraction sits when he could very well play it's an issue.

Problem is the NBA wants to have its cake and it eat it too on this one. The NBA markets individual players far more than other leagues do. They promote the game as seeing Lebron and the Cavs, not just the Cleveland Cavaliers. They do so much individual player promotion which is fine, but don't act surprised when people are pissed they can't see their favorite player play after the league promotes that individual player to no end.

Like I said though. Get rid of tier pricing based on quality of opponent and the rest is less of an issue. If I'm paying some crazy mark up from the teams box office and a healthy lebron or curry doesn't play, hell yeah I'm going to be pissed. If I paid the same price I'd pay for any other game, it's nowhere near as big a deal.

The idea of NON-tiered ticket prices just isn't realistic. I mean it is noble and all but why SHOULD tickets have a flat free no matter who is playing?

Why shouldn't they? How isn't it realistic? They did non tier pricing for years. This only started in recent years. I remember going to Laker games and it cost the same to see Jordan and the bulls as it did to see ed o bannon and the Nets at the teams box office. The secondary market is a different story but you can't control that.

Players might get hurt, coaches might rest players etc. if the tickets cost the same for all 29 opponents, fans have less reason to complain. When you mark that one game up and price it at a premium and the reason it's marked up to begin with is a healthy scratch, it's a bad look all around.

On another note, the league should focus more on marketing and promoting teams over individual players. They market individual players way more than any other league does, so it's going to be much more widely scrutinized when a star player that's seen as the face of the league rests when selling his one visit to town was a key part promotion wise of selling ticket packages. Some teams make you buy tickets to a bunch of other games to guarantee you get tix for the Warrirors/Cavs game. They promote the hell out of lebron, currys one visit to town.

Toothpaste is already out of the tube man.

It isn't realistic because of the simple fact that the League Promotes STARS over the teams. So as long as they promote certain stars over the rest of the NBA Population, there will always be tiered pricing.

Also, I feel you SHOULD pay for to see a "POTENTIALLY better" product. Maybe that is just living in a capitalistic society, but I don't see why a Cavs ticket shouldn't cost more than a Grizzlies ticket.

Hmmmm. I agree I wish the NBA especially would market teams more, but the league has made their money off of the mega star players and everything business-wise pyramids off of that. The other three major leagues don't do this but it's how the NBA thrives.

Who knows, many at some point it will have to start changing...but the elephant in the room is ESPN as we know controls almost everything, and they've been content taking the top 5 players in the NBA and covering them (and showing their highlights) more than the rest of the entire league combined. It's infuriating for a lot of people sometimes....but it's not changing any time soon and teams adapt and sell tickets this way too.

Well it's a conflict of interest when said stars are a healthy scratch. They shoot themselves in the foot with that. Funny thing is though that if they don't do it on back to back prime time Saturday night games, I doubt the rest issue gets the attention and scrutiny it currently is receiving.

I get why playoff tickets and finals tickets cost more. But I don't see no point in tiered pricing. The Lakers on the road were considered a premium game. The Lakers last season were a crap 17 win team, but it was Kobe's last season. You weren't getting a better product seeing that crappy Laker team last year.

The league should eventually do away with that star over team stuff though. It's outdated. It made sense in the 80's when Jordan, Magic, and Bird revived the league. It's not needed anymore though.

Cedric Ceballos said:

. The Lakers on the road were considered a premium game. The Lakers last season were a crap 17 win team, but it was Kobe's last season. You weren't getting a better product seeing that crappy Laker team last year.

The league should eventually do away with that star over team stuff though. It's outdated. It made sense in the 80's when Jordan, Magic, and Bird revived the league. It's not needed anymore though.

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Maybe there should be an actual formula that dictates ticket pricing. Team Winning %; All-Stars on Team; Championship Within Last 3 Years. I am sure something can be done

Because the sorry Lakers shouldn't warrant such a high price tag.

But again, supply/demand rules all. People WANT to go see the Lakers man.

I get where your heart is, but like I said before, the cat is out of the bag. There is no turning back at this point.

Funny thing on that is in that case the Spurs would generally be one of the most expensive tickets to see year in year out. The demand for their games isn't there on the level of the teams with superstars though. Always found that interesting.

Moving forward though it'll be interesting to see how things are handled. The NBA doesn't care if little Billy from Memphis is pissed off that his family paid $450 to see lebron play and he was a healthy scratch.

The NBA does care when abc and espn who pay billions to broadcast the games make a stink when the star players miss multiple games that they paid to broadcast. That's where I'm kinda shocked that some of these coaches are that naive. Tyronn Lue should've had an idea that resting his stars the week after the warriors did it on an abc prime time game was going to draw negative attention. Do it on a random non nationaliy televised Thursday in Utah and it's a story for a day and it fizzles away.

The last thing teams want is the league clamping down on the rest issue and dictating how they can play and not play players and that would be bad. But I'm curious to how it's addressed in the offseason. Coaches didn't do their cause any favors by being to blatant and smug about the rest issue.

Lue only rested LeBron man.

Love was recovering from the injury.

Kyrie was actually hurt.

So Lue didn't really rest his playerS.

Listen to Nash on Simmons.

32 minute mark, they spoke on the issue