http://sports.yahoo.com/news/allen-heat-top-short-handed-035703071--nba.html Short version: NBA Spurs coach sends several verteran starters home for league game citing grueling upcoming schedule. NBA Commissioner publicly apoligizes to fans and promises stiff sanctions. This is commonplace in soccer. Is the product that different between the NBA and EuroSoccer? Is it all about the star power and the entertainment, or is it about how best to win a championship. Curious what folks thought about this. I think the NBA is being ridiculous and is ultimately cheapening its game by putting players ahead of competition.
No if you field a weakened team in the carling cup or a cup game or even a league game if champions league is more important the FA has fined teams for doing so.
I think the NBA is putting the fans ahead of poor team management. Leagues know the key to success is keeping fans and TV companies happy and allowing something like this to go unpunished could lead to more coaches taking similar actions making more fans and TV execs pissed.
Correct, but with exceptions The funny thing is Manyoo or Aresenal, etc. never get fined for doing this. Lesser teams do. I can't remember the circumstance a several seasons ago, but a team like Stoke, Derby or Norwich, a lower end team, made it deep in a Carling Cup or FA Cup run and rested a bunch of their starters in an EPL match they were certain to lose against one of the big clubs in order to have them ready to play in the Cup match. The FA fined this team because they put out a 'non-competitive' squad against one of the big guns.
Intersting. I didn't realize the FA had fined teams like that before. But it is clear enough that sometimes stars are rested, and it seems to me that is not a bad thing. In the extreme, maybe, but it seems particularly odd when there is no other, concurrent competition. Does the coach not already have enough incentive to do what the fans want without the league telling him what the fans want? I can understand that winning games and titles are not the same as entertaining fans, but I would have expected market forces to be enough to take care of both without need for fining managers for sitting players for a game to manage their roster. Seems like NFL teams assured of playoff spots rest starters at the end of the regular season -- are those teams fined?
The only soccer that has been discussed in this topic are English clubs. What does this have to do with the USMNT?
Nothing directly. Please move it. I moved out from N&A but didn't go out far enough. Just thought it would interest some soccer fans in the US.
Wolves and Blackpool were both fined for significantly changing their starting lineups (officially for fielding less than full strength teams) in the last few years during league games. Ian Holloway even threatened to quit. ManU can significantly change their lineups and not get fined because a) they win, b) they throw in enough "names" to appear "full strength", or c) the FA are pussies. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...nation-following-25k-Premier-League-fine.html
Apparently neither do the San Antonio Spurs (unlike the other Spurs). They only lost to the defending champ by 3, and had a chance to win in the last minute. For that, the league fined them $250,000K. The point is, clearly there is a difference between ANY team's first and second teams. Clearly the FA has a double standard.
close enough. They were in a position to win. Stern is an ass. He is fining the team because they made him 'look bad.'
He rested them for a pretty big, nationally televised game because they had played 4 road games in 5 days. They also had a big home game yesterday. Arguable as to the merit of what he did, but pretty stupid on the part of the NBA imho.
The NBA plays 82 regular season games and then has a 4 tier playoff format... and therefore, those athletes with their multimillion dollar salaries should play every game because they make a ridiculous amount of money. When they work, it's a 2-3 hour performance. They get per diems families of 4 could get by for a week on. They should play every minute possible to justify the incredible access to the life of luxury they've been given.
David Stern has no right telling a coach how to run his team, these players are humans not robots. I hope the Spurs owner appeals the $250K fine and pulls an Al Davis "You want that money, I'll see you in court."
"lol" should be a sufficient enough response. They haven't been given anything, they all earned it. They aren't robots, they're humans with bad knees, bad joints, bad legs, backs arms you name it. They play through pain and illness. If they get one night off then it's probably not because they're soft or weak, it's probably because they're burnt and need rest. 2-3 hour performance hardly captures the essence of the wear and tear they put on their body in that time.
The insatiable urge to be entertained vicariously watching others compete in games created the "monster." Television/media moguls have fed into this cycle until the athlete has become commodity. The athlete's are not robots, but they are being paid extraordinary amounts of money to perform. In soccer, there are competitions outside league play that occur in between league matches. There is no equivalent in the NBA. If a player is tired and aches that is the norm. If a player is injured, they deserve proper treatment (and they have access to the best in the business and state of the art methods towards recovery) and decisions on playability ought to be made by the player in concert with a doctor's recommendation. That being said, I can't justify the huge salaries these players are receiving, except in light of the fact that for many many years the owners were socking away profits at the players' expense. Now there is a more level relationship between player and owner. They both make more money than 99% of the rest of the people on the face of the earth. Resting starters for a league game only underlines the tip of the potential iceberg for many American sports...you want your best players available "when it counts," and that means the marquee match ups and the playoffs. This infers there are games that may be looked at as less competitive, less important to the overall picture, from the team management point of view. Are the fans being charged less to attend these games? No. Are the rested players not being paid? No. Has the post-season become so lucrative that it overshadows the regular season? Yes, IMO. The post-season has become a way for the media and team owners to milk every last dollar out of their product, as they have added extra games to earlier round play-offs and wild card spots to put more teams in the pot. They say its good for the game, good for the fans. When regular season matches are, however, then being weighed as to their relative importance, something has been tipped in a different direction. Winning the league in the EPL, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, and other domestic soccer leagues still maintains its degree of status as a pedigree achievement. Wining the conference in the NBA is a stepping stone to home field advantage for the playoffs. Somethings gone awry with the extended play-off format in many US sports, and it is the money making machine (not the athletes) who have driven it to be so. Fire away...
From 1990, no less. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/99210/RILEY-RILED-OVER-FINE-FOR-RESTING-MAGIC-WORTHY.html?pg=all BTW, Mexico, then under Javier Aguirre, played their B-team vs. T&T on the last match day of 2009, thereby allowing the US to nip them for the group win. Bob played a lot of youngsters vs. T&T himself in 2008 (Altidore and Davies participated). I find Blackpool's fine disgusting. The basic reasoning behind it was that the team could only compete with its A-roster because it wasn't deep enough otherwise. Fergie will sit Rooney and play Chicharito and there's nary a drop off. But the top global soccer teams have far greater depth than your typical NBA squad. Plus, Stern is a major league a-hole.
Well, that is a fundamentally ridiculous statement. Begrudge the players all you want, but they work a little more than" two to three hour shifts." Two of the players that were sent home to San Antonio had full summer slates representing their countries at the Olympics. That came after a deep playoff run that follwed a condensed and completely ludicrous regular season last year. Yes, they get paid handsomely for what they do, but these guys each earned everything they have. Your post reflects a general tone of jealousy that is only matched by your apparent lack of understanding of the sheer amount of work these players put in to be the best in the world at the job they perform. Also, Popovich is one of the best coaches of all time. He has earned the right to do with his team as he pleases. David Stern is a Napoleonic asshat that was upset that Pop basically told him that his schedule is idiotic and unbalanced.
Jealousy, no. Lack of understanding...I don't think so. I've worked with athletes for nearly 30 years at nearly all levels (semi-pro in the PDL, ODP in soccer, and many years in college soccer). I'm well aware of how badly condensed scheduling negatively impacts recovery and rehabilitation. The sheer amount of work I understand, as one who has spent countless hours coaching high caliber athletes, traveling with them, preparing for competition et al and making do with far less than a multimillion dollar salary. Yes, its a grind to be a pro athlete. They still get paid more than those who are working for world peace or trying to find the cure for cancer or trying to educate our youth. This is not a bandbox rant. I never intimated anyone should be playing while injured, nor did I take a stance on Popovich or Stern...the latter of whom is an asshat, OK?
It looked like, with a bunch of races already decided, half of the clubs during this week's Champions League and Europa League matches were featuring their B-squads.
With the NBA season only a month or so into its season, and no cup games to rest starters in, the point was that the Spurs rested 4 starters. With the Europa Cup, and most of the CL, too, first group games pretty much already decided, resting players is commonplace. The only caveat germane to this thread and the resting of the players was the incident with Messi versus Benfica. But, as all have said regarding Messi's injury, he could have been similarly injured in training. And Messi, for whatever its worth, plays an incredible amount of minutes per season. He didn't need to come on for Barca, other than he's chasing Muller's scoring record. Anytime a superlative athlete goes down, its a troubling moment.