Gregg Popovich: The NBA’s new resting rule is ambiguous

A well-intentioned rule, written in good faith — but not entirely clear.

During the Spurs’ road trip, Gregg Popovich shared few of his thoughts on the rest rule that seem to resemble some concerns we raised on this site earlier this summer. Specifically, how is a coach supposed to know which players the league requires him to play on “no-rest” games?

“Frankly, it’s a little bit cloudy… Some of the stuff is in stone and should not be negotiable. Obviously … if Kawhi is healthy … I need to play him tonight even though it’s a back-to-back [because] we’re on the road and he only plays in Boston once… I can deal with that.

“On the TV games, the only thing I wonder about is how far down does the list go? I forget the words — not your important players or your star players or your marquee players or something like that? There’s a word, I just can’t remember what the adjective was, but how far down the list does it go? How do you tell us? Are you going to tell us which ones are the marquee players and which ones aren’t?

“I guess they will if we don’t play them and the fine comes, then I guess we’ll know this guy is a marquee player.”

If that seems like a lot from Pop, then you haven’t seen the breakdown of the 17 minutes he spent speaking with the media before the Celtics game, which you should definitely read if you haven’t already.

As to how Pop will negotiate the lack of information around resting, he’s a smart guy, and Adam Silver is an approachable commissioner, so I’m sure they’ll figure it out. Or maybe they won’t, and the Spurs will get fined — it wouldn’t be the first time.

Source: Pounding The Rock