Opinion by Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star
INDIANAPOLIS – The NBA just passed a series of rules that will help the NBA, its TV partners and biggest markets. But the NBA’s new rules, trying to reduce the resting of star players, won’t help everyone. In fact, it will hurt a handful of cities.
Ours, for one.
Make no mistake, these new NBA rules – targeting the way the league’s best players skip the occasional game – is a good thing. But get this straight, too: The unintended consequences of this rule will penalize fans of the Indiana Pacers.
Hell, maybe it’s not even unintended. Or at the least, when we get screwed around here next season and people like me notice in real time and make a fuss, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver won’t be surprised. He knows what will happen next here. Or rather, what won’t happen.
Your favorite visiting player on the court at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Follow me here.
The new rules on player participation require a healthy “star” – defined as someone named to an All-Star or All-NBA team over the past three season, a list of 49 players – to play in nationally televised games. Which team almost never appears on national TV?
Ding ding ding!
Mark my words. Rather than letting their team get fined upwards of $2.25 million for skipping a national TV game against the usual suspects – Lakers, Warriors, Suns, Celtics, Nuggets, Bucks – the best players in the league will sit out regionally televised games, against another cast of usual suspects:
Pacers, Hornets, Pacers, Raptors, Pacers, Wizards, Pacers…
Bright side, teams with multiple players on that 49-star list can rest just one of them, or risk a fine that starts at $100,000 for the first offense and climbs to $250,000 for the second offense, $1.25 million for the third and $2.25 million for the fourth. The Boston Celtics, for example, can’t rest Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown when they visit Gainbridge Fieldhouse for two games on Jan. 6 and Jan. 8.
But what’s to stop the Celtics from resting Tatum in one game, and Brown in the other? Nothing beyond respect for fans in another market, and while the integrity of Brad Stevens is beyond reproach, the decision won’t ultimately be his.
Remember last season when the Brooklyn Nets visited the Pacers on Dec. 10 and trotted out a junior varsity lineup without Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons? And for good measure, without Nic Claxton, Seth Curry and Royce O’Neale? And Joe Harris and T.J. Warren?
Good times. The NBA fined the Nets a comical $25,000.
The NBA grew some, um, teeth with this new rule – a first fine of $100,000, escalating quickly – but the league didn’t do it for you. The NBA did it for the money. Its current TV deal, worth $2.66 billion annually, expires after the 2024-25 season. Negotiations are ongoing now. Can’t have Zion Williamson ticking off ABC by skipping a game against the Suns, can we?
Better to miss that game Feb. 28 against the Pacers.
There is a bright side to this: When opposing stars choose to rest at Gainbridge Fieldhouse – and they will – the Pacers have a better chance at winning. That’s common sense, too. The Bucks without Giannis Antetokounmpo were 11-8 last season. The Hawks without Trae Young were 3-6. The Mavericks without Luka Doncic were 5-11.
Maybe the Pacers can steal enough games to qualify for the last playoff spot and avoid a spot in the 2024 NBA Draft lottery! Wait, that’s no good either.
A few years back, Steph Curry and LeBron James skipped games within five days at what was then known as Bankers Life Fieldhouse. I was there for the LeBron game – rather, the no-LeBron game – and wrote this:
For his 13th birthday, Nathaniel Dunica wanted to see LeBron James. For his 60th, so did Frank Adams. Nathaniel lives 90 minutes away in Winchester. Frank Adams came three hours from Columbus, Ohio. His sons, Derick and John, spent nearly $500 on a trio of tickets to see LeBron.
“When I heard he wasn’t playing,” Nathaniel said from his spot under one basket, “I thought: ‘Well, crap.’”
About 30 rows behind the opposite basket, Adams came up with two more words:
“This sucks.”
It did, it does, and it will again this season. I still remember, the night of the LeBron no-show, the fury of Kourtni Bymaster. A nurse at Methodist Hospital, Bymaster had to rearrange the schedules of a handful of colleagues to get the night off. Two tickets cost Bymaster $750. LeBron? DNP-rest.
“Go ahead and say it,” Bymaster told me that night. “I’m pissed off.”
NBA owners passed the new rules Wednesday by a 30-0 vote, which means Herb Simon of the Pacers agreed to this. So did owners of the Magic, Wizards and a handful of other teams that get left off national TV, and as an added bonus will get left off the 82-game itinerary of some of the world’s best players this season.
Maybe they don’t understand what’s going to happen to their fan base. Maybe they don’t care.
Maybe, if you’re a local NBA fan, you might want to think twice about saving up your money and rearranging work schedules to see your favorite player, whoever it is, make his one trip to Indianapolis. Bright side, you can always catch Luka or Trae or Devin Booker or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander when they play the Lakers on national TV. The stars never miss those games.
Originally posted on indystar.com