NBA Player Participation Policy explained

The NBA knows that many fans root for what’s on the back of the jersey and not the front. While there are plenty of diehard fans, the best players in the world drive casual fans to the stadium and television, and the league has beefed up measures to ensure they’re on the court. 

Why is the NBA concerned about player participation?

Over the past decade, load management has become the NBA’s buzzword bugaboo. For most of league history, teams would run players into the ground, and star players were a shell of their former selves by their early 30s. The San Antonio Spurs in the early 2010s changed all of that when they became highly disciplined with the minutes load shouldered by their older players, aka load management. The Spurs would make back-to-back finals and win a championship in 2014 built around Tim Duncan, 37, Manu Ginobli, 36, and Tony Parker, 31. 

The rest of the league took notice and adopted a similarly cautious approach with older stars. The results saw better longevity and per-minute production, and the trend continued to flow down to younger and younger players. Now, the NBA believes they have an epidemic of load management and are set on limiting the practice. 

Who is affected by the Player Participation Policy?

The NBA’s new Player Participation Policy focuses on star players and is an enhanced version of their Player Resting Policy from 2017-18. The league defines a star player as any player who has appeared once on an All-NBA or All-Star team over the past three seasons. In total, the league defines 49 players as stars. A player can be added to the NBA’s official star list if they make the All-Star game during the season. 

What does the NBA Player Participation Policy require teams to do?

According to an official release from the NBA, the NBA Player Participation Policy requires teams to: 

- “Manage its roster to ensure that no more than one star player is unavailable for the same game.

- Ensure that star players are available for all national television and NBA In-Season Tournament games.

- Maintain a balance between the number of one-game absences for a star player in home and road games.

- Refrain from any long-term “shutdowns” in which a star player stops playing games.

- If resting a healthy player, ensure that the player is present at the games and visible to fans.”

The Player Participation Policy aims to ensure star players are visible for their biggest broadcasts and for at least one star to be available every night. There is also specific language to help promote stars playing against every team at least once on the road.

NBA Player Participation Policy exceptions

The policy includes exceptions that authorize more leniency based on “injuries, personal reasons, and pre-approved back-to-back restrictions based on a player’s age, career workload or serious injury history.” The NBA’s pre-approved back-to-back exceptions permit players over 35, who have career workloads of more than 34,000 regular-season minutes, 1,000 regular season and playoff games combined, or have a serious injury history to rest on back-to-backs. The team simply has to write the league a week before their back-to-back and justify resting one of their stars. 

NBA Player Participation Policy penalties

Teams in breach of the policy will face a series of escalating fines. The first violation will result in a $100,000 fine, the second a $250,000 fine, and each subsequent violation will result in a fine that is a million more than the previous fine. 

How the new CBA and NBA Player Participation Policy work together

The NBA’s Player Participation Policy contains plenty of stick to get stars on the court, but a new stipulation in the Collective Bargaining Agreement provides the carrot. For players to qualify for end-of-the-season awards and an All-NBA team, they must play in 65 games. 

How effective will the policy be?

It remains to be seen how effective the NBA’s two-pronged approach will be in getting more games out of its star players. Many of the league’s biggest stars, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kawhi Leonard, check one or more of the league’s pre-approved back-to-back exceptions. And the players who benefit most financially from making an All-NBA team or securing an end-of-the-season award tend to be younger players with Supermax language in their contract or have yet to receive a Supermax. 

There’s also the issue that the NBA’s definition of a star doesn’t completely align with reality. The Brooklyn Nets have one star player, according to the league, and it’s Ben Simmons. Meanwhile, rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama, one of the most in-demand players in the league, isn’t a star by the league’s definition. 

The NBA season is only two weeks old, and there has been very little talk of load management. As the fresh legs bestowed by the offseason fade, teams will be more tempted to sneak an extra day of rest for their NBA-sanctioned star players. When that happens, we won’t know if the NBA Player Participation Policy is working because if it is, they’ll be out there like they were the night before.