The new phrase to know in the NBA (and other leagues) is “load management,” brought to the forefront by Kawhi Leonard and how he is being used by the Clippers.
Is resting players, particularly on one end of back-to-back games, a smart strategy for the long haul or is it overblown nonsense?
Sports science tells us that rest and recovery are important. Old boxscore data tells us that playing back-to-back games is … just fine for almost everyone, at least in terms of production?
Every player I looked at on Basketball Reference has nearly identical statistics when playing on zero, one, two or three days of rest.