The NBA season tips off tonight and Bradley Beal is listed as questionable for opening night as the Phoenix Suns are in San Francisco to take on the Golden State Warriors. The NBA has made a big deal about players missing games, that new participation rules were enacted for this season. The NBA says data no longer supports resting players, or load management.
“Before, it was a given conclusion that the data showed that you had to rest players a certain amount, and that justified them sitting out,” said Joe Dumars, the executive vice president of basketball operations for the NBA. “We’ve gotten more data, and it just doesn’t show that resting, sitting guys out correlates with lack of injuries, or fatigue, or anything like that. What it does show is maybe guys aren’t as efficient on the second night of a back-to-back.”
What Science Is The NBA Using?
Sorry, Joe. We don’t believe you. You need more people.
So let’s get this straight. At one point scientific data supported player rest and now all of a sudden it doesn’t? Is that how science works?
Who compiled and studies this data? Where is this data? Has it been published in a peer-reviewed journal?
Do the 30 teams and their performance and sports science personnel agree?
There are lots of questions about Dumars’ comments.
Dr. Michael Joyner, a world-renowned expert in human performance and physiology, leads a Mayo Clinic lab that studies “how humans respond to various forms of physical and mental stress during activities such as exercise.” He has worked with all sorts of elite athletes, Navy SEALs and other elite special forces.
According to Joyner, there are five factors of fatigue: travel/sleep/recovery, minor injuries, season duration, number of hard efforts (games) in a two-week window, and mental grind.
“A good rule of thumb is five really hard efforts in two weeks,” Joyner said in a 2016 interview with ESPN. “Make me NBA czar and I would shoot for no more than five games in a two-week period with no back-to-backs. That makes the regular season about 33 weeks.”
An actual world renowned physiologist who has been published countless times in the best peer-reviewed journals in the world.
The White House went to Joyner for how to manage and solve the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dumars and the NBA just want us to accept their word and “data”?
No credible medical professional, sports scientist, etc. would say that rest does not correlate with injury frequency. No intelligent lay person would say it either. It’s laughable.
The Federal Aviation Administration has mandatory sleep rules for pilots. A minimum of 10 hours of rest is required between shifts. The pilot must have 8 hours of sleep during this period. Pilots must also have 30 consecutive hours of rest each week.
Why do you suppose that is?
I don’t know about you. But I don’t want to be on a plane captained by a pilot who hasn’t had his mandatory rest.
This Is About Money
The truth is the NBA is in the middle of negotiating its next broadcast rights deal and it wants its star players playing as much as possible to boost ratings, so they can secure a desired $50 billion to $75 billion deal.
“We don’t need our TV partners to tell us that when teams sit players and when players don’t try at an All-Star game that makes for worse competition. It’s incredibly obvious to us, and ultimately we’re trying to serve fans” said Evan Wasch NBA executive VP of basketball strategy and analytics. “Yes, it’s the case that because we’re negotiating TV deals in the next year or two here, it takes on even greater importance because we’re in the middle of those conversations. But we can self identify that these were issues that needed addressing independent of any outside (influence).”
Sure thing, Evan.
The NBA better hope its insistence on participation, as if players don’t do everything possible to play, doesn’t cause a serious injury to one of the league’s marquee players or two. Then they’ll really have problems on their hands.
