Over the weekend, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love all sat out a matchup against the Los Angeles Clippers, a game that was being broadcast on ABC. A week before that in another ABC game between the Warriors and Spurs, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala were all scratched from the lineup.
In both instances, all of the players who sat out were perfectly healthy. The fans and the league's tv partners, as well as league commissioner Adam Silver have some major concerns about these superstars not playing in high profile matchups.
Silver sent out a memo to all NBA teams yesterday in which he referred to this practice as “an extremely significant issue for our league,” adding that teams will face "significant penalties" if they fail to follow NBA rules for reporting player injuries and illnesses.
"Decisions of this kind do not merely implicate issues of player health and team performance on the court; they also can affect fans and business partners, impact our reputation, and damage the perception of our game," Silver states in the memo. " With so much at stake, it is simply not acceptable for Governors to be uninvolved or to defer decision-making authority on these matters to others in their organizations."
“I do recognize, though, that there isn’t an easy solution to that problem, and I’m sympathetic to fans who turn out — whether they buy tickets to games or watching games on television and don’t see their favorite player on the floor,” he told reporters. “But we also have to be realistic that the science has gotten to the point where there is that direct correlation that we’re aware of between fatigue and injuries."
Silver concluded by saying that this is a complex issue with no easy solution and that there will be a full discussion of this issue in their Executive Session of the Board of Governor's meeting on April 6th.