Play. We don’t want to disappoint the fans.
I may have oversimplified it, but this is, in my opinion, the core message of the effort to resist and push back the practice of load management. If you are a fan, you like this. You’d think “the league puts my best interest at heart.”
Until you — a fan — realized it was actually a slap in the face.
This argument against load management — that fans disapprove and dislike the practice of having players sit games to minimize the risk of injury — is an insult to fans. Why? Because the implication is fans are short-sighted and that they are unable to comprehend and appreciate the wisdom and the science that connects rest and longevity and planning long-term.
This argument is an insult to fans because the implication is fans are superficial and selfish, that they want to watch basketball games because they want to be entertained and they want nothing less than the amusement provided by the strongest, the fastest, the craftiest, most talented players both teams can offer, that it is only worth their time and money if every marque player comes out for a showcase to serve at the pleasure of fans.
I’m not saying that league officials are deliberately trying to insult the fans. I’m just wondering if it crossed their mind that this line of thinking insulting.
In How much is too much? International Olympic Committee consensus statement on load in sport and risk of illness, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2016, researchers explained that “there is also some evidence that increased training load, competition load, and psychosocial stress together with international travel, as part of a congested sports calendar, may all be risk factors for illness in the elite modern-day professional athlete.”
In Monitoring Athlete Load: Data Collection Methods and Practical Recommendations, published in Strength and Conditioning Journal in 2018, author Chris Wing wrote: “Accurate load management enables players to be physically prepared for the demands of training and competition, as well as reducing the occurrence of both injury and illness.”
I am a fan – of sports, science, and common sense. If science tells me that periodical resting during the regular season puts the athlete in peak condition during playoffs and common sense tells me that peak performance in the playoffs improves the chances of qualifying (and potentially winning) the championship, then why go against what appears to be a very intelligent approach to winning? And more importantly, how can those who refuse to see the value of load management to athletes, to their health and well-being first and foremost still have the temerity to call themselves fans?
I think the three basic requirements to become a real fan are (1) to be supportive, (2) to root for the team’s success, and (3) to see basketball players as competitors first and foremost and not mere entertainers.
It behooves me then how those who qualify with the abovementioned criteria and thus deserving of the title “fan” are ill-served by load management, just as I struggle to make sense of how encroaching on a team’s supposed independence to develop a winning strategy is to the benefit of the fans.
Load management is not the enemy. The true enemy is the (unfounded, unwarranted, and perhaps misguided) fear of losing or disappointing fans as a result of load management. Michael Jordan left basketball to play baseball and when he returned two years later, his fans were still there. I don’t think being absent for two, five, or even ten games in one season will drive fans away from basketball. The NBA had a lockout four times, and in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the temporary suspension of NBA games. But when the games resumed on both occasions (and despite some players opting not to play because of the threat of COVID-19), there was nothing but excitement from the fans.
Fans love basketball. Load management is not enough to kill this love affair – give fans due credit for being steadfast and resolute.
The real enemy is losing sight of the essence of playing competitive basketball, which is to become a champion. And the most formidable enemy of all is resisting the inevitable (and constant) transformation of professional sports — load management was unheard of in the past, it does not mean it does not have real merit and does not deserve a place in modern professional sports.
That is why we have sports science, so that how we play sports — and more importantly, how we think — evolves.
Let teams do their load management, and let the chips fall where they may.