Get off the bench

Sam Presti announced last week that Kevin Durant, the 2014 MVP award winner, has been “removed from basketball activities.” On Feb. 22 Durant had surgery on his foot, which had been nagging him since a screw was inserted in October as part of an operation to repair a Jones fracture. Long story short, Durant’s foot never fully healed. The former MVP has averaged 25.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists in 27 games this season. I am going to venture to say that, even though the Thunder are in the thick of the race for the eighth and final seed in the Western Conference playoffs and Russell Westbrook is putting up historic numbers, more people would buy a ticket to a Thunder game if Durant were in the lineup each and every night. Just a hunch.

Durant has a legitimate medical reason why he is not playing. There are other players, however, that do not have a “legitimate excuse” to not be suited up. The Spurs, for example, have popularized the “DNP - Rest” input in the box score, but even in those cases it has been acceptable because the Spurs were resting their many veteran players to gear up for a deep playoff run. The Warriors, currently sitting in first place in the West, have rested their stars for some games this year. Why is this accepted? As a fan, when I buy a ticket for an NBA game, I know I’m not seeing Durant this season, but I want to see Stephen Curry. I expect to see Steph run the fast break and hit 3-pointers. But when I show up to Oracle Arena, he’s not playing because of rest? What gives?

Well, young fan, tough luck. With around 15 games left in the regular season, teams at the top of the standings have their eyes set on a bigger prize than winning a not-as-important weeknight game against a below-.500 team. Entertaining you is not an NBA team’s priority, as much as that fact might hurt you or make you feel less personally invested in your team’s well-being.

The rest bug has now infected not only the contenders but also the common lottery team. On March 16, the Denver Nuggets rested three of their starters for their game against the Memphis Grizzlies. Now, if I am going to a Nuggets game at this point of the year, I want to see Kenneth Faried, Ty Lawson and Danilo Gallinari. The Nuggets are in 12th place in the West and have an extremely slim chance of making the playoffs. This I do not understand. To clarify, this was not the coach’s or players’ decision, but rather the front office. The team had beaten the Pelicans in overtime the night before, with each of the three aforementioned players playing at least 42 minutes. Every team in the league plays tough back-to-backs, and so using this as an excuse is weak and holds no water with me.

The real reason that they rested is because they were having success. After firing coach Brian Shaw, the Nuggets had won six out of eight games and suddenly their draft position was getting worse. It comes back to our old friend, the concept of tanking. And whether I like it or not -- I actually have less of a problem with tanking than just fatigue -- it is the way of the league right now. I will opt to answer the same way Faried did when asked about not playing against Memphis: “No comment.”