Report: NBA Board of Governors Expected to Vote on New Load Management Policy

The NBA may not be done attempting to curb the increasing trend of "load management" for the league's biggest names.

Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium and ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported Monday the NBA Competition Committee is weighing amendments to the rules regarding player rest.

The NBA already made an effort to address load management in the collective bargaining agreement. With specific exceptions, players must appear in at least 65 games in order to qualify for individual awards or All-NBA honors.

While that serves as a clear deterrent, it obviously leaves a lot of room for teams to rest otherwise healthy stars on occasion. The rules outlined by Charania and Wojnarowski would go a step further.

To the extent load management can be classified as a problem, it is a problem for both the league and its fans. The NBA understandably doesn't want to see national TV games watered down. Likewise, fans don't want to pay for tickets in the hope of seeing specific players, only for those players to stay glued to the bench.

However, the dilemma for the NBA is that proactively resting players is merely a remedy to a larger issue the league itself can't possibly solve.

As early as 2019, ESPN's Baxter Holmes detailed how basketball players are being physically overworked well before they ever reach the pro level. One doctor interviewed by Holmes said teenagers "are broken by the time they get to college."

Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, who had firsthand experience in elite youth basketball before watching son Bronny work through the circuit, told NBA insider Marc Stein last November that "it's too much."

"They go from playing all summer right into school league, all summer again right into school league, all summer right into school league for four years, and then they go off to college or go play wherever they go to play," James said. "If they are fortunate enough to get to the NBA, it's a lot of basketball, lot of miles, they put on their bodies."

NBA players have gone through the wringer before setting foot in the Association, and when they get there, they're playing the game at a faster pace than ever. Combine the two factors and players are bound to feel more burned out than ever.

Fans will inevitably argue shortening the regular season is the most straightforward solution, but there doesn't appear to be any momentum from league officials in that direction.

By keeping an 82-game schedule and tightening the rest rules, the NBA might run the risk of alienating players and team officials while simultaneously failing to address the underlying issues that led to load management in the first place.