NBA league office intends to pass stricter rules and punishments around star players resting during nationally televised and in-season tournament games.
That’s according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who reports that the NBA will come down hard on instances of multiple All-Stars sitting out individual regular-season games.
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Here is the full list of proposed rules:
– Teams must manage their roster to ensure that no more than one star player is unavailable for the same game. Teams must ensure that star players are available for national television and in-season tournament games.
– Teams must maintain a balance between the number of one-game absences for a star player in home games and road games — with a preference for those absences to happen in home games.
– Teams must refrain from any long-term shutdown — or near shutdown — when a star player stops participating in games or plays in a materially reduced role in circumstances affecting the integrity of the game.
– Teams must ensure that healthy players resting for a game are present and visible to fans.
In current discussions, a star has been defined as someone who’s made an All-Star or All-NBA team in the past three seasons.
The new measures are expected to be approved by the NBA’s board of governors on Wednesday and would give the league the authority to fine teams over $1 million for each violation.
The impending new rules have surfaced as the NBA negotiates a new media rights deal, for which it wants to ensure the strongest possible product.
The NBA will provide “several scenarios for excused absences on missed games”, including regular season back-to-backs, according to Wojnarowski’s report.
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