NBA official: Load management has no impact on injuries

"Load management" has been one of the biggest storylines in the NBA the past few seasons. 

Whether it was Kawhi Leonard missing 22 games with the Raptors on their way to a championship in 2018-19, Damian Lillard sitting out the end of the Trail Blazers season last year or Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green resting during the same game, it is almost expected that NBA stars, especially older players, will take at least the occasional game off in order to try and prevent injuries. 

Despite this being a generally accepted practice, the NBA has new data to suggest that there is no correlation between load management and injuries according to Joe Vardon and Sam Amick of The Athletic.

“Before, it was a given conclusion that the data showed that you had to rest players a certain amount, and that justified them sitting out,” said former All-Star and current executive vice president of basketball operations Joe Dumars to Vardon and Amick. “We’ve gotten more data, and it just doesn’t show that resting, sitting guys out correlates with lack of injuries, or fatigue, or anything like that.”

This statement from Dumars comes after the NBA instituted a new "Player Participation Policy that restricts when players may rest if they are not dealing with a specific injury. This policy hopes to curb load management by prohibiting teams from resting multiple star players (defined as making either an All-NBA or All-Star team in the last three seasons) during the same game and during nationally televised or in-season tournament games, balancing the amount of home and road games that star players miss and prohibiting teams from shutting down otherwise healthy players at the end of seasons. 

The NBA and the NBA Players Association also agreed that players must appear in at least 65 games to be eligible for end-of-season awards and All-NBA teams.

While the specific data that Dumars and the NBA is referencing has yet to be released, it is clear that the NBA is committed to getting their star players on the court. 

If there really is no increased injury risk, it will be a welcome change to see the best players in the league on the court more often. The games will be more competitive and the fans will be happier.