Erik Spoelstra Shuts Down the Idea of Shutting His Players Down

The frenetic pace of a 66-game season has given the current campaign a rather unique dynamic; some games are seemingly forfeited because of scheduling alone, and players have been physically and mentally ground down as a result of an unrelenting slate.

The nature of professional basketball's packed schedule inherently makes hotels, room service meals and plane rides bleed together, but with less downtime than ever and therefore a smaller window for rest and recovery, many coaches around the league have opted to rest their star players whenever possible.

Erik Spoelstra has opted for a different approach with his rotation, per Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel (via PBT):

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"We used to joke about it years ago that the media will start talking about resting guys three weeks, a month before the season ends. This is absurd. Everybody is going through this right now. Does everyone feel 100 percent? No. Is there some physical fatigue? Yes. Is there some mental fatigue? Probably. Every team is going through that. We're not going to shut it down with three weeks to go. That type of storyline is getting ridiculous."

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Despite the vastly different mechanisms at work, the rotational approaches of Spoelstra and, say, Gregg Popovich, aren't at all opposed.

Pop has a tendency to rest Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and/or Manu Ginobili during particularly strenuous stretches, in games against specific opponents or just because he feels like it, and yet his approach is actually identical to Spoelstra's. Both coaches know their teams, and while there's a bit of haphazardry to coaching in such unique conditions, Spoelstra and Popovich are merely proceeding with an understanding of what their respective rosters can handle. 

They know their rosters better than just about anyone on the planet, and although many make a spirited discussion over whether certain players should or shouldn't be resting more, that conversation conveniently ignores the level of intimacy with which coaches and trainers go about their jobs.

There is certainly a time for questioning the decisions of coaches, but there's an innate silliness in broaching these topics from outside the wall with any kind of purported authority.

A coach's decision to rest a certain player stems less from a general philosophy and more from the specifics of a situation and the advice of his staff. We can grasp at straw claims that a player would be better served sitting or playing, but there will always be a lack of specific information to guide our understanding of a player's status.

We can break down plays, pick apart rotations and parse the numbers in a variety of ways, but this is one particular aspect of basketball analysis that relies on hearsay as a matter of necessity. We're all a bit blind when it comes to understanding specific injury and fatigue, and though no coach is infallible in any situation, the lack of practical knowledge should make deference more or less the default.