Adam Silver: Player Participation Policy ‘Initially A Somewhat Light Touch’

The NBA approved a Player Participation Policy that mandates healthy players appear in games. When a team rests two healthy stars in the same game, they will be subject to fines.

“In terms of how long we’ve been working on it, I would say with a more serious focus, roughly in the last year it became part of the collective bargaining, I should say,” said Silver. “The Player Participation Policy is part of many steps we’ve taken. Whether it’s in the bargaining agreement itself, the 65-game limit for eligibility for awards, creating different incentives for players, like the Play-In Tournament, for example, like the In-Season Tournament, to focus attention on the regular season. But the policy itself, I think it was, the Players Association was very much a part of it. We had extensive discussions with them. Then with individual groups of players, particularly veterans in the league, about how they thought we should be approaching it.”

While players have received an outsized share of criticism for the practice, it was teams who began pushing the concept in order to keep players healthy.

“Yes, I do worry about infringing on how a team operates,” said Silver. “While we want to state a strong principle, I would say at least initially we’re taking a somewhat light touch here I think under the notion that change will probably happen here incrementally. I think we’ll state this principle, see how teams react and see if more needs to be done.

“But I think most importantly there’s a sense from all the different constituent groups in the league that this is ultimately about the fans and that we’ve taken this too far. I mean, this is an acknowledgment that it’s gotten away from us a bit, particularly I think when you see young, healthy players who are resting, and it becomes maybe even more a notion of stature around the league as opposed to absolute needed rest, or it’s just part of being a NBA player that you rest on certain days. That’s what we’re trying to move away from.”