National Basketball Association

Charles Barkley doesn't understand why NBA players need so much rest

Published Apr. 18, 2016 10:02 a.m. ET

foxsports

Charles Barkley has yet another problem with today's NBA. The Hall of Fame forward doesn't get why teams rest their players so much, and why the players are fine sitting out.

A majority of Barkley's points are either antiquated, bombastic or nonsensical, but on this complicated issue it's easy to understand both sides of the aisle. Here's what he had to say:

Chuck weighs in on teams resting players... https://t.co/9LuBD3EZuy
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 18, 2016

First of all, NBA players rest because it makes sense for them to do so. An 82-game regular season is brutal on the body, and fans shouldn't have to watch their favorite players sludge through a fourth game in five nights (and risk suffering an injury) just because it's on the schedule.

Yes, it really stinks whenever a good player doesn't take the floor even though he's healthy enough to do so. But that's not on the player or the team. It's on the league's travel schedule, the length of the NBA season and individual games.

And then there are teams—like the Sacramento Kings—who just rested their best players down the stretch in games that only appeared meaningless to the untrained eye. They were blatantly tanking, and didn't want to decrease their odds in the lottery or forfeit their draft pick altogether.

I wonder how many of their best players the @SacramentoKings will rest tomorrow against against Minnesota? #tank
— Michael Perkins (@MikePerkins17) April 7, 2016

It speaks to another problem the league office needs to look at: the unwanted incentives for essentially losing on purpose. Barkley didn't go into detail there, but he makes a good point. If DeMarcus Cousins is healthy enough to play down the stretch, even after his team is eliminated from the playoffs, he should play. The same goes for just about everybody on the Chicago Bulls.

The value of rest can't be brushed to the side. It's important and deserves more nuanced discussion. At the end of the day, the NBA is an entertainment product, and that means the best players need to play whenever they can. But changes need to take place so that it makes sense from an organizational perspective.