The San Antonio Spurs were fined $250K by David Stern for resting Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Danny Green prior to the end of six-game, nine-day road trip, in which the Spurs were playing four road games in five days. The main reason why? The game was against the NBA's sweetheart of a team, the Miami Heat.
Had it not been against the huge-market Heat, no fine would have been levied. How can I be so sure of this? Well, in April of last season, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich did exactly the same thing, sitting Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili against the Golden State Warriors. There was no subsequent response from the league. But Stern sure provided one yesterday, in a questionable attempt to justify his uncalled for action:
The result here is dictated by the totality of the facts in this case. The Spurs decided to make four of their top players unavailable for an early-season game that was the team’s only regular-season visit to Miami. The team also did this without informing the Heat, the media, or the league office in a timely way. Under these circumstances, I have concluded that the Spurs did a disservice to the league and our fans.
The Spurs’ actions were in violation of a league policy, reviewed with the NBA Board of Governors in April 2010, against resting players in a manner contrary to the best interests of the NBA.Here's his translation: We love Miami. Its "fan base" brings in loads of cash for our league. How dare you sabotage a game on TNT where they even put Charles Barkley on the broadcast team, all because you wanted to rest your aging players who were playing their fourth game in five days in the best interest of your team?
If he has a problem about the game's competitiveness, he shouldn't. The final game was 105-100, Miami. The game was competitive, but it was role players that made it so, not "superstars," which is why Stern is ticked off. Would he have done this had the Spurs bench won? His problem isn't a question regarding integrity of the game, but rather that the goofball bandwagon Miami fans didn't get to see all the superstars they paid to. (Stern probably doesn't even care about the integrity of the game, which is evident in the coddling of the league's "superstars," which is a topic for another time.)
The NBA, under Stern's guidance, is turning into more of a production and less of a sport, eerily similar to the WWF.
What Popovich did was simply in the best interest of his team, which he has led to four championships. His job is to run the Spurs in a way that allows them to contend year after year.
He should also be allowed control over HIS team. It's not David Stern's team. The coach, in a normal circumstance, is the man who decides players' playing time. It's tyrannical that Stern grants himself this power, in a similar fashion to when he vetoed the Chris Paul to the Lakers deal.
The commish is picking the wrong fight, as well. The man who's paying the fine, Spurs owner Peter Holt, was an instrumental figure in ending the lockout as head of the NBA's Board of Governors. He's been one of Stern's most helpful allies.
If Stern keeps acting so recklessly, he won't have any left.
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