Here’s why the Heat should be outraged by the Nets resting healthy starters vs. Bulls
NBA commissioner Adam Silver recently called the practice of teams resting healthy players the league's biggest area of concern, and the Brooklyn Nets just gave him another wrinkle to consider when looking at possible solutions.
The Bulls and the Heat are battling for the final playoff spot in the East, and Miami needs a win Wednesday coupled with a Chicago loss in order to make it in. But the possibility of the Bulls losing just got significantly smaller, thanks to the Nets announcing their plan to rest healthy starters in advance of Wednesday's contest.
https://twitter.com/BrooklynNets/status/851924711198117888
The worst part about this for Miami is that there doesn't appear to be any logical reason why the Nets would do this. Brooklyn has already secured the worst record in the league, and the best possible odds in the NBA Draft Lottery that come along with it. The game in Chicago isn't being played on the second night of a back-to-back, and there aren't any unusual travel circumstances that would warrant a need for healthy players to rest.
The Nets just beat the Bulls on Saturday, and had won four of their past six. Brook Lopez and Jeremy Lin are the team's two leading scorers.
"There is no more important issue in the league right now, it goes to the heart of what we do and the core of competition," Silver told reporters earlier this week. "What we talked about among our owners was a sense of obligation to the game and what appropriate behavior is. And so what we concluded is if we could focus on these two issues, namely, to the extent [if] you're resting, resting at home and avoiding resting multiple starters, especially in marquee games, we could solve a large part of the problem."
In a game with major playoff implications, the Nets will be going against all of that if they follow through with their plan on Wednesday.
