http://hoopshype.com/columns/tolnick/the-real-disservice Spoiler Stupid decision by Stern. It doesn't matter if its a national game. The Spurs were on a long road trip, had 4 games in 5 nights and they have to go against the defending champs who had 4 days of rest. The Spurs stars are over 30 years old. So I guess Pops gets fined for being a good coach to his players. This is something that Pops been dong for years. A good technique for his player's longevity. Plus there is nothing in the rules where a coach can't rest his players. Stern can't order coaches to play who they want and when. Last year when the Heat and Celtics face each other on national TV and both teams rest all their starters and Stern didn't even mention anything about it. Even though this is November, the coaches still have their rights to rest their players if they want to especially after a long grueling road trip. Its up to the coaches to play whoever they want, not Stern. This is another example of why Stern is slowly becoming one of the worst Commissioner who is ruling the NBA with dictatorship instead of being an allied. Stern is not a leader and I cannot wait until the end of his tyranny reins. Lock if posted
My bad, the Spurs I mean... Anyway, the Spurs resting their starters after this long road trip for one game isn't going to deter anything. Its a long NBA season, the Spurs starters are old, and the NBA playoffs are more important than a November game. Doesn't matter if TV executives are happy or not, coaches have the rights to rest their players or sit them out. If Stern wanted to do the right thing instead of displaying his power, he could of talk to the Spurs organization and discuss the issue. But overall, this isn't right. I'm not a Spurs fan or anything but Stern has no rights to do that. Its ridiculous. By doing this, it means that coaches have to play their stars and not allow to rest them no matter what if the game is televised. At the end, he's not doing this for the fans but more for himself.
Well, Poppovich probably could have handled it a little better. Instead of essentially going public with his frustrations over the schedule and making a statement, all he had to do is sit them on the bench in Miami. I doubt they would have gotten fined if the Spurs were a little more subtle in this instance. At worst he could've put in Green for five minutes and taken him out.
The fine has been discussed in the other Popovich thread for a day now, there's like 15 pages about it. You have to understand Stern's situation too. He has a business to run. They'll have to negotiate new TV deals. If this happens regularly, it will hurt the league financially, including the Spurs. The question is, did Stern go about it the right way. Maybe he should've had a long private chat with the Spurs, and that's it. Or maybe he did that already in the past, and it wasn't enough... we just don't know. Also, Popovich has been b****ing about schedule too much, so this looks like a statement.
