With the prevalence of teams resting players, fans who shell out a considerable sum of their hard-earned money to watch the superstars in action run the risk of not seeing them at all.
In the Memphis-Cleveland game on Wednesday (Thursday, Manila time), for example, people who went to FedEx Forum expecting to see LeBron James went home disappointed because James didn't join the Cavaliers for the trip and had stayed home to take a one-game break.
Worse, fellow All-stars Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving didn't dress, too.
One fan who was at FedEx Forum took to Twitter to share his feelings.
The pain is real pic.twitter.com/xL97ifoSjS
— 3 Shades of Blue (@3Shadesofblue) December 15, 2016
Balancing players' health and fan engagement has been a point of contention between teams and the league for a while now.
In November 2012, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich was fined $250,000 for resting his top four scorers in a road game in Miami.
In March 2015, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr ended up having to answer fan email after resting Steph Curry and Klay Thompson in a road game in Denver.
Coaches and players have raised concerns that the grueling 82-game schedule forces them to sit out games within the season. The CBA recently agreed upon by the league and players, which will stretch the season out by an extra week to help eliminate the much-maligned four games in five nights, should minimize the need for using "DNP-rest" and ensure that the best players are on the court at all time.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
