The NBA wants star players on the court as much as possible. If that wasn’t already self-evident, the league made it clear that this was a priority when it instituted a stricter Player Participation Policy (PPP) last September, which followed the introduction of a 65-game minimum for end-of-season eligibility in the new collective bargaining agreement.
It is fair, then, to wonder why, during the 2024 playoffs, star players have been dropping faster than diss tracks. (Zion Williamson, Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, Damian Lillard, Kristaps Porzingis, OG Anunoby, Mitchell Robinson, Donovan Mitchell and Tyrese Haliburton are among the notable names who have missed games after getting hurt in these playoffs.) During his two-and-a-half hour end-of-season press conference on Tuesday, Oklahoma City Thunder executive vice president and general manager Sam Presti noted that, in addition to the PPP and the 65-game rule, there were other changes this season: The first annual In-Season Tournament, now named the NBA Cup, resulted in a compressed schedule during the second half of the season, and officials called a historically low amount of fouls after the All-Star break. One does not need to be a sports scientist to understand how a more tightly packed late-season schedule, combined with increased physicality, might lead to more injuries leading up to and during the postseason.
“If these things are not working in concert, I think we just gotta keep an eye on it,” Presti told reporters.
Presti said that he’s been a “big proponent” of the tournament and described commissioner Adam Silver as “a miraculous visionary for the business.” He also said that “the outcome we want” is to get “the best players on the court as much as possible and in a position to perform at their best.”
In Presti’s view, the league needs to look at how the various things they’ve implemented are “colliding with each other.” So let’s look at each of them.
The 65-game rule and the PPP
Presti said he was “very supportive” of the idea that players need to be as available as…
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