Basketball fans in Memphis paid to see their hometown Grizzlies take on Film noir ArchivesLeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love on Wednesday night. Instead, the visiting Cleveland Cavaliers will likely start a lineup featuring James Jones, DeAndre Liggins and Iman Shumpert.
The defending NBA champs' high-powered trio is taking the night off, you see. In doing so, they're illustrating the unfairness of life as a modern NBA fan.
SEE ALSO: NBA Superstars: Extremely Rich, Yet Also UnderpaidCavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said Tuesday that James, Irving and Love wouldn't make the trip to Memphis for Wednesday's game, the second in two nights for Cleveland. It's hardly an NBA anomaly -- teams with hopes of playing well into the playoffs rest key players with some regularity.
But Cleveland's Wednesday night rest-fest stands out for a couple reasons.
First, all three stars are resting during the same game. Second, Wednesday is the Cavs' only scheduled trip to Memphis this year -- making the situation extra sensitive for Tennesseans hoping to watch the NBA champs live.
Now imagine you're a hard-working parent who shelled out a few hundred bucks a couple months ago to take your hoops-crazed kid to Wednesday night's game. It's a splurge, and a special occasion. For weeks and weeks, your kid has been hyped to see James, Irving and Love make basketball magic. Now you have to explain to your kids that not only is James, the world's greatest player, not playing -- but Irving and Love won't even be on the court, either. Ouch.
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To be clear, the Cavs are hardly alone here. The Golden State Warriors -- the hottest ticket in the NBA -- are sure to give star players breaks as the season goes on. Perhaps most famously, the San Antonio Spurs were fined $250,000 for resting four starters during a nationally televised game four years ago.
David Stern, the NBA commissioner at the time, called it a "disservice to the league and our fans." Stern's successor, Adam Silver, seems more concerned with the bigger picture than doling out punishment like Stern did to the Spurs four years ago.
Silver has said he's in favor of extending the NBA season, to spread games out more and reduce the number of back-to-back and four-games-in-five-nights gauntlets during which teams typically rest stars. Time will tell if such an alternative can actually be arranged.
But that all gets to the heart of this problem as it stands now. Blaming Lue -- or James, Irving and Love -- for Wednesday's no-show in Memphis misses the bigger picture.
The coaches and star players of elite teams are ultimately judged by their employers, the media and fans by how well they perform in the playoffs. In recent years, more research has illuminated the effects of the NBA's grueling 82-game schedule, which not only includes all those games, but enough midnight travel and odd-hour arrivals to make a CEO blush. That means some regular season games -- and the fans who attend them -- pay the price for the NBA's taxing schedule.
So what's the fix? That's hard to say, because there isn't an easy one. Mandating that teams only rest players for home games doesn't fully solve the issue. Refunding fans for cases like the one in Memphis on Wednesday doesn't seem realistic.
For now, what we can say with certainty is this: Even with no one specific to blame, the fans in Memphis deserved better Wednesday night. And that's a shame.
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