On Sunday and Monday nights, Celtics followers have been handled to a crisp back-to-back of video games ending within the whole embarrassment of a wildly inferior opponent. The primary of which noticed the Wizards—who’ve gained fewer video games at their house Capital One Enviornment this season than the NC State Wolfpack did on their method to win the ACC Tournament—trot out a squad of gamers so horrible that the Celtics most likely might have rested half their staff and are available away with a snug victory.
Oh wait, they did do this! Celtics mainstays Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, and Kristaps Porzingis all sat out with smiles plastered on their faces as Jayson Tatum and Sam Hauser mixed for 60 factors in entrance of a “Wizards” crowd that gave the previous MVP chants and the latter a standing ovation.
After presumably the least demanding highway recreation of his profession, Tatum was requested about his choice to go well with up in such a lopsided affair, even whereas on the harm report with a left ankle impingement.
“I don’t like to sit down out,” Tatum stated, matter-of-factly.
He elaborated additional, acknowledging that he would sit if actually injured whereas additionally emphasizing how he takes delight in suiting up for the followers that don his #0 and are available to see him hoop. He simply likes to play basketball, and doesn’t take as a right that his bodily prime solely consists of so many video games.
Nonetheless, on the second evening of a back-to-back, Tatum conceivably yielded to the needs of Celtics coaching employees and sat the second recreation, with Porzingis, White, and Brown returning to unceremoniously dispatch of the Pistons. All in two days’ work.
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Picture by Garrett Ellwood/NBAE by way of Getty Photographs
Resting journey back-to-backs isn’t something revolutionary, however when taken together with his feedback after the Wizards recreation, Tatum is unknowingly offering a launchpad to debate one of many silliest matters within the burnt stir-fry of NBA discourse: celebrity harm danger.
I’m going to get the housekeeping out of the best way earlier than we do any enjoyable stuff. Sure, loads of stars miss video games with precise accidents, however the league oversight on what constitutes an “harm” is positively horrendous. Except the league intends to usurp particular person groups’ personnel selections, a star participant can miss any recreation they need with left thumb soreness and name it a day.
Tatum’s “left ankle impingement” that sidelined him for the Pistons recreation might be actual, however hasn’t appeared too severe as he places collectively possible his third consecutive All-NBA First Staff-level marketing campaign.
As an alternative, let’s give attention to actual accidents in the meanwhile. Save for just a few very particular outliers, accidents are both freak accidents or the results of long run pressure on a specific physique half. Joel Embiid tore his meniscus when Jonathan Kuminga dolphin dove on prime of it, however nobody noticed that coming till it occurred. Kristaps Porzingis’ left knee, however, has been a problem because the late 2010s and can proceed to be going ahead contemplating the near-decade of wear and tear and tear it’s endured.
Tatum has been some of the sturdy gamers within the league ever since he was drafted. He’s began in each single playoff recreation the Celtics have performed in since he confirmed up, and continues to place collectively marathon seasons whereas taking little or no day off, even main the NBA in whole scoring final common season.
However no participant seven years deep is with out battle scars. Tatum performed by means of {a partially} fractured wrist within the 2022 NBA Finals, and has managed this left ankle subject all season, although it’s a type of accidents that you just start to query the validity of when he performs by means of it continually.
The Celtics are staring down an ungainly stretch of seven-to-nine-ish video games the place they’re prone to have mathematically clinched the primary seed within the Jap Convention. Video games will then change into actually meaningless till the playoffs start, and we’ll all rightly marvel if the Celtics stars—Tatum foremost amongst them—ought to truly be taking part in in these video games.
Reply primary is oh-my-god-no-absolutely-not-why-would-you-even-suggest-such-a-thing-wrap-the-entire-team-in-bubble-wrap-until-mid-April-and-maybe-just-keep-Porzingis-in-bubble-wrap-just-to-be-safe. If that’s you, I really feel you.
Utterly meaningless video games are a real rarity within the NBA, with most groups having just one or two annually and playoff seeding gridlocks within the remaining few days of the season. The 2023-2024 Celtics—who, on paper, are beginning to seem like some of the dominant common season groups ever—might have as many as twelve meaningless video games if the Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers lose their subsequent three video games and the Celtics win all three.
More likely is the seven-to-nineish vary, however even the potential of clinching the one seed with 12 video games remaining speaks how badly the Celtics have bludgeoned the Jap Convention for the higher a part of 5 months.
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Picture by Stephen Gosling/NBAE by way of Getty Photographs
A pure intuition, then, is the Bubble Wrap Response. It feels insane to place anybody within the Celtics potential playoff rotation liable to a Kuminga-Embiid state of affairs when they’re fairly actually taking part in for nothing. Nor would the Celtics need their guys to build up any extra miles earlier than a brutal two-month playoff run that can take a look at each ounce of resolve this staff has within the canister.
Fast factual interlude: I do not know what the legality of doing that might truly be, as whereas gamers are allowed to “relaxation” non-nationally televised video games, I’m not precisely certain what that NBA would do if the Celtics trotted out Svi Mykhailiuk and Oshae Brissett for 47 minutes each recreation for 2 and a half weeks.
Even so, I don’t assume the Celtics would—and even ought to—do that, as they need to keep heat for the playoffs and never begin a mini trip when the entire staff is about to go zero darkish thirty. They’d most likely ease up fairly exhausting, however Tatum’s feedback lead one to imagine he would need to play no matter playoff standing. Ought to he?
From the NBA’s perspective, Tatum’s mindset is strong gold, and has virtually definitely come up in varied NBA-TV community negotiations over the following media rights deal. Right here’s how I think about these conversations went.
“Look! Look right here ESPN and TNT, wonderful TV networks poised to pay us billions of {dollars} over the following decade for unique rights to air our video games,” stated the NBA to the TV networks. “Take a look at the meritorious Jayson Tatum, proclaiming his intention to play in all video games—meaningless, lopsided, or in any other case—for the love of the sport! What great stars now we have on this league, don’t you assume?”
The TV networks would retort that, sure—whereas Tatum is a splendidly marketable participant who thinks load administration is a swear phrase—the remainder of the league’s superstars assume very in another way. Joel Embiid, Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, these guys have been lacking video games with minor accidents for years on finish, and Tatum’s mindset is definitely the outlier. However these three guys even have not-winning-anything-all-that-recently on their timesheets, whereas sturdiness tanks like Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo run the league.
The preservation of a killer intuition is the perfect argument for the Celtics’ stars persevering with to play by means of abject meaninglessness, although such a nebulous idea is unlikely to carry up within the courtroom of public opinion ought to Jaylen Brown break his hand on a dunk sitting 14 video games away from the Bucks with 10 video games remaining. Don’t fear, I’ve already knocked on wooden.
Additionally, these guys are professionals who play basketball for a residing. In the event that they need to play as a result of it’s their love and fervour to take action, no one ought to inform them they will’t. Everybody understands their very own means of getting amped for the playoffs, and if to Tatum which means taking part in in 79 of the Celtics’ 82 video games? So be it.
The issue with determining the risk-reward of crucial Celtics taking part in out the ultimate video games is the full irrelevance of the phrases “danger” and “reward” to the state of affairs. The danger is similar because it at all times is, except you’re a conspiracy theorist alleging {that a} rival staff might go full Tonya Harding on one of many Celtics’ stars. By which case… yeah. Yeah.
It’s unimaginable to know if or when a man will get injured, so most “evaluation” of groups’ selections with taking part in time and cargo administration comes ex submit facto, taking part in the outcomes and taking victory laps. There’s a motive ex submit facto legal guidelines are prohibited by the US Structure: they’re silly.
On the finish of the day, guys ought to play in the event that they really feel they will and sit in the event that they really feel they should. It’s not going to make a catastrophic harm suck any much less or extra, so let the fellows hoop if that’s what they need to do. Excuse me whereas I’m going knock on some extra wooden.
