I don't defend the players because most players don't mind playing. I've seen KD hoop in sweltering heat where all he could inhale is weed smoke. There's players who work out and the games become intense and it's supposed to just be fun and a way to stay in shape. The reality of the situation is that gone are the days of appreciating what players do during regular seasons because fans think regular seasons take too long and are meaningless, especially when you don't win. Add to the fact that it feels like players are more physically fragile than ever and you get a major group of fans who get hyped for opening night, hyped for Christmas and then wanna fast forward to April. If load management/tanking/whatever is your best route to one day win an NBA title, that's your business. If my reaction to that is to tune you out, that's also my business, but the Knicks can put out you, me, and three others in this thread and Knicks fans will still pay obscene prices to watch us hoop.
The people who cry about load management are the same ones who think we need expansion because the talent pool is so deep. Teams do this stuff because they're trying to avoid those same fans wondering why some injury prone star was out in the 4th quarter of an otherwise meaningless game and heard a pop in his knee. Same fans who could watch a player play a bunch of time and then when he's gassed in the playoffs, get mad at the player. When everything but the title is disincentivized, the glory of doing regular season type stuff wears off. The only major reason why anyone should be pissed if a player sits out is if that costs your team a chance to win that game, but that's usually not the case.
I can almost sympathize with the fan that came all the way from India and paid all this money only to go to the arena and someone they wanted to see isn't there. It sucks, but it also sucks if that player was hurt or was trying to play hurt and made the situation worse and now cost your team a chance at a title. Jokic missed 13 games last year. I'm sure every Nugget fan who was present for the games he missed got over it when he held up the LOB Trophy. I'm sure all the Keldon Johnson stans in San Antonio said to themselves "I get it now" when they won the lottery. If your team clinched a playoff spot or top seed, bytching about why a team rested their players at the very end of the season to gear up for the playoffs is just selfish. Now, if you're tuning in and you're bytching about why a player ain't playing on a Thursday night in January, change the fukking channel. If
@CHICAGO can watch The Big 3 every week to see what Royce White wrote on his head, an actual NBA fan can tune in and see whether someone takes advantage of the opportunity to play and see if he's worth a damn.
