NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman was the latest “old school” player to weigh in on the idea of this generation’s NBA players resting. His comments drew an interesting response from his former Chicago Bulls teammate, and current Warriors head coach Steve Kerr.
Rodman was critical in his comments about LeBron, and implied because of rest Bron could never be Jordan. Rodman said:
You know what, LeBron is doing one thing that I always said that Michael Jordan never did. Never rested. He played every game. He played every game. LeBron has the position to do this now because they need him. The league needs him and that’s why he’s doing all this crazy [expletive] now like [expletive] and complaining and all this bull [expletive].
Rodman is who he is, so this comment is no surprise. Here is Kerr’s response courtesy of ESPN’s SportsCenter Twitter account.
Dennis Rodman complained about LeBron James resting.
Steve Kerr had some thoughts on that. pic.twitter.com/Hvlo69rx3C
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 6, 2017
Sick burn by Kerr. Plenty of guys that are “old school” rested back in the day. They may not have sat out and explicitly said they were resting. But, getting suspended, taking plays off, intentionally fouling out of games, are all ways in which players found ways to get rest.
The reality is, an 82 game season plus the playoffs is a lot of ball. If we want to see the highest quality basketball in the playoffs, these guys need rest to perform at their best.