NBPA President CJ McCollum and JJ Redick Have An Honest Talk About The Load Management Problem 

Cj is just such a well spoken guy. I like listening to him.

CJ spitting knowledge. Dude is sharp.

I for one hate the argument cushion that nba fans fall back on with load management. When Kobe questioned it they give him props and say "mamba mentality" but when Giannis played last night and hurt his wrist they say "there's no reason you should have played, it's right before the asg". Pick a side

Alverado alluded to a larger issue. Core Players are comfortable in their pay and have all the leverage to load manage. While fringe rotational guys like Alvin will play no matter what because he is playing for his basketball life essentially. The incentive for star players to show out for the fans is almost completely gone. Just look at how they treat the all star weekend, most players would rather vacay

Man CJ is so sharp when he speaks you can feel the poise, you can feel The presence he’s just so well spoken and chooses his words very carefully

Really love JJ for giving the players a really good platform to get to know them better, and to hear their opinions.

I think for anyone not from the USA, the answer is obvious: less games, or a longer season. It is insane to play back to back games in different cities.

Jose said I’m broke bro. Y’all in a different bracket 😂. I’m in all 82. 😂😂😂

CJ and JJ content is the best! Couple of guys that know the ins and outs of the league and how it's run and how it's covered and know the player perspective. Always ready to dive into nuance in a way people understand. Keep it up!!

JJ has become one of my favorite channels this past year. Would love to see the show live if it came to northern cali. Could maybe have both warriors and kings players stop by to talk. Definitely would purchase a ticket for that!

He's right about the post season mattering more. Don't forget Popovich was the one who started the load management with Duncan, Ginobili and Parker because they were in the post season literally every year, all those games take a toll on players.

The way CJ just broke this down was amazing

Best program on the NBA in all the media. Getting to know the players you watch is a joy to all basketball fans. Keep up the good work!

what an incredible conversation. cj is immensely impressive and thoughtful.

Looks like the players have excellent representation in CJ, thoughtful insights and deep understanding of all aspects of the game.

CJ always gives well thought-out and mature responses on topics like this. I miss his podcast where he would talk a lot more about this stuff

There is no fix as CJ said. Teams have their own priorities which they put first and fans might suffer from that. Like it’s life. You can’t please everybody.

CJ is on point. He's a great person to be leading the players association. No easy solution, agreed. 82 game season needed to generate revenue that pays players their big salaries. But scheduling can be better.

“Not mentioning any names” has kawai and PG in the thumbnail lol!

The solution I never see discussed, is having more depth in the teams. Let the players play all games, but your starters could be playing some games for 20 minutes instead of a full 30 minutes. But the star driven nature of the games, means that most teams end up trading depth for stars and now those stars have to play for insane minutes a game.

Why not just make players who choose not to participate because of load management do a meet and greet or something like that event though you didn’t get a chance to see him play it’s like I still met him and connected with him

I think number of games played during the year should factor into the all nba awards and end of year rewards. Meaning and this is just an example if a player doesn’t play 55+ games they can’t be eligible for those awards. I think something like that is the cleanest way to do this. You want those awards or you want your bonus in your contract for been on one of the all nba teams, well you need to play and need to be available for at least 55/82 game or whatever number is chosen by the league and players

There's a reason these two are on ESPN...say what you want but they can spot talent

I love CJ McCollum as a player and a person. He is not even on "my" team but I always want to see him have a good game.

Teams and players primarily load manage to avoid or rehab injuries. The main problem is load management reached to a point that some teams and specifically players miss out games with ridiculous reasons which is now hurting the NBA product. To manage this load management thing is to reduce the number of regular season games. Careers are defined more during the playoffs so it is much better to put the attendance and emphasia of marquee players there. For nationally televised games, it should be a must that load management is prohibited unless medical doctors prohibits the player. The league already manage some of the back to backs to avoid stress and fatigue to the body of players. The assocation can also tap the contracts of the players and put specifics on load management.

I love Alvarado’s honesty. Superstars and those in power like CJ have way more of a luxury to take more days off.

As a fan of D Rose, Kawhi, Zion & TMac, I'm on the players' side. Do fans & the NBA league office want their favorite max contract players to miss the whole season because they played through injuries that weren't safe to play with??? Or would you rather those players be available for the part of the playoffs season and the most important parts of the regular season? Take it from this huge Derrick Rose fan. A franchise's (and city's) 10 year future can dramatically change with one catastrophic injury. Whether it's a freak injury or an injury caused by wear and tear. If you told me there was someway to still have 10-12 years of prime Derrick Rose, without that injury but for only 60-70 games/year. I'd take that deal every time. Same for Grant Hill, Demarcus Cousins, T Mac, Kawhi, Yao, Penny, D Wade, Kobe's achilles injury, etc. Most elite players want to play more than anything. They want to win rings and entertain the fans. But the fans need to understand that asking them to just play through it is sometimes asking for trouble.

I miss 90's and 2000's basketball... played full seasons and we all got to see our favorite players. can't remember when Ewing, Oak and Starks took any time off and they were always in the playoffs!

As an outsider of the pelicans overall, I see now why Jose’s. a fan favorite. Likable, good mindset and a DAWG

“warriors” “you have a pelicans hat on😐” 😂😂😂

So interesting hearing some of the reasons for load management. That never occurred to me. Going to bed late etc.

Jj reddick is def one of the best podcast host out there. Man, keep inspiring bro. Hopefully, soon I will be having my own podcast too.

CJ is a very smart player and understands the important aspects of load management. Also a great player.

I think what would help is incentivizing playoff byes. If the nba is set on having 10 teams in each conference, then the first round should be seeds 3-10 matched up in a first round 5 game series while 1 and 2 get a bye. This would highly incentivize getting a top 2 seed

That was an amazing talk !! All parties

As a fan of playoff/championship ball (and the Spurs), the two most important things to that...are health and players 6-12. 6-12 get their reps and earn trust when stars sit...and what sense is it me getting to see one player if the team doesn't get into the playoffs. Yes I wanna see stars...but as a fan of my team...I wanna see cats 6-12 play as well. I think the happy medium is to let the stars start...get some minutes and sit them.

Incentives! Gotta add incentives in the contract!

64 Game Season No back to backs To do so: 1. Players either take an initial salary reduction or take a salary increase lock for 10 years 2. Owners allow two more franchises to join the NBA. Mainly overseas or out of the country teams to offset money lost from 9 less home games per year and more competition to get into the playoffs 3. Get rid of East and West conferences. 16 bracket playoff torrantment with playin games Solves everyone problems. But the questions is everyone willing to take less money to improve the league

cj is an amazing spoken person. i was watching this in 2x speed but had to slow it down to 1.25x to really appreciate him talking

Just lengthen the duration of the regular season. It would shorten the offseason by a couple weeks but it would help reduce back to backs

I think an important aspect to this that people (fans, media, etc) have to remember is not every NBA player loves basketball. For a lot of them it’s just a job, and like JJ said, once you set a precedent they’re gonna fall back on that bc why would those types of players wanna work more than they have to? Especially when their money is guaranteed regardless. It’s just another layer to this we have to keep in mind. Bc some (maybe the majority, who knows) are gonna put their interest above playing the game, fans and team be damned.

CJ complaining about scheduling so he can attend his side job as an ESPN analyst is hilarious

Cj the man. Jose is a great personality. These kinda talks add so much to the culture 🤘

Couldn't ask for a better spokesperson for the players than CJ. Really eloquent speaker.

I really do think back to backs are a bad thing. Players do not seem to like playing on back to backs.

It’s the only sport with load management to this level. It’s ridiculous and LAZY! The NBA is a joke and to act like their sport is harder than any others is ridiculous. NHL, Soccer, Football, etc all play every game they have. NBA players are lazy as hell and I wouldn’t blame fans for being mad about buying tickets and not seeing the stars play.

Great conversation had here

The other issue Ive haven’t heard. Players want to protect their per game stats. Some players (I think)would rather sit one game and play 37-40 min. Rather than play 2 games about 29-32 min and mess up their avg.

The NHL has back to backs, similar schedules, hockey is more physical and has a higher risk of injury every time they step on the ice and there is A LOT less load management. Why is that?

The only thing I can think of is if they stretch the season out to have more time in between games but the only way to get it to be effective would be to cut into some of the offseason but players wouldn't like that.

Great stuff

Good conversation and points made by CJ but I think the biggest thing is NBA fans from older eras remember players like Michael Jordan playing 82 games for 15 seasons. Some players now won’t play maybe against a small market team just to “rest” but don’t consider the parent that had to save several paychecks to take his kid to that game only for the kid to be disappointed.

The best fix is just communication..fans should get a discount or option of refund if a certain threshhold is met They sure love charging extra when steph and Bron are comin to town, but u dont get the price difference if those players arent playing If at the gate ur greeted with "hey, just so you know such n such will not be playing tonight, u can accept a discount/upgraded seating/or full refund I dont know, its a tough situation all around, so at least compensate the customer monetarily when they are disappointed about the product they thought they paid for

I don't get load management & the thinking behind it when it DOESN'T INVOLVE INJURY. My thing is the stars aren't the only ppl w/ the life issues CJ pointed out. Role players have the same issues but they suit up. Jose made CJ's points seem more like bitching. Pro sports take its toll but trying to avoid injuries leads to more injuries

It's crazy that we are just now seeing slot of players in a relaxed setting talking about this stuff. Amazing that nobody has thought of this before now. Very good ides fans are loving it

Awesome vid

mlb players play pretty much every single day for 6 months......NHL players play a harder sport on the same type of schedule as NBA, Getting scheduled rest days is fine or dealing with nagging injuries but to sit as much as a lot of these guys do is crazy. despite load management there seems to be just as many injuries

What an answer from CJ. He totally gave me a new perspective on this.

McCollum has a great career ahead of his NBA stint. Beautifully spoken.

Great JJ more like this 👏

They should just split the ticket cost. Have a lower priced ticket that's what you get today (so there's no perception of a money grab). But then offer the ability to buy insurance policies on top of tickets that offer a partial refund policy if a player isn't playing that night. As with any insurance policy, you can select how much of a refund so that if you are travelling out of town, those costs can be covered.

I’m all for players resting, but there needs to be some kind of refund opportunity for the fans that paid extra money to see super star players. Often they find out game day that they aren’t playing.

i understand the crossover between sports and math is not large, but i think the equation would be to maximize the area under the bell curve of the season, as in the most games healthy as possible during the season with making it sustainably to the end.

The issue, and it's not a negative or positive, is the money for star guys is so big, the incentive that Jose plays for is gone for them.

The goal is not to compete for a championship- not for the majority of teams. The goal is to create the illusion of competing.

There will never be a perfect solution. End of the day, there’s guys that will wanna play and guys that don’t. Fans will always fill seats, the prestige of going to a game will always be present no matter if a team is good or bad. There’s gonna be 82 games, I doubt that will change 😂.

CJ is so well spoken. Very cool.

Thumbnail Paul George and Kawhi 😂

I think a good first step would be release a load management schedule for each team (when possible, and not related to injuries). This could help the situation with kids coming to games to see their favorite player, and them not playing.

Jose is tryna get that bag

Need more interviews with nba council

There should be player incentives for playing a certain # of games during the season. I do think the NBA can schedule in a smarter way and cut down on back-to-backs.

To me, even if you shorten the season, load management is here to stay. Because it goes beyond the NBA season. Players get started young and sports training has improved so much…but there are consequences to that. The strain that is placed on kids bodies has increased. With the money that is tied to sports at multiple levels, the ‘pro’ mindset starts earlier and earlier. I think you can see that with how many young players come into the league and make immediate impacts or have very short adjustment periods. And it’s not just an nba thing, you see it with other leagues as well.

I wonder if what CJ was saying at the end "you know your body the best" is what happened with Kawhi and San Antonio.

Wow, CJ, your a very smart and well spoken man!

thank you cj for your wise thoughts 🙏

As CJ says, the problem stems from every team is positioning themselves for the playoffs. That implies that teams are willing to sacrifice higher seeds to avoid injury risk. So teams see regular-season games as expendable. It's why I hardly bother to watch an NBA game start to finish until the second round of the playoffs. If the teams don't really care if they win or lose that game, why should the fans? The issue, then, is how to make regular season games more important. I think a possible solution is to change the playoff format. Ideally, I would reduce the playoff field from 20 (including play-in teams) to 8, but that's never going to happen. I'd also like to give higher seeds a stronger advantage than just homecourt advantage. We are clearly seeing veteran teams be willing to rest stars to rest them ahead of the playoffs because the benefit of resting them outweighs the consequences of going down one or two seeds. Maybe the solution is to reward higher seeds even more than we already do, such as giving them a one-game lead in the playoffs before the series even starts. It'd be like the 2020 play-in between Memphis and Portland where Memphis had two win two games to advance whereas Portland only had to win one. The NBA determined that Portland had won more games than Memphis so their path to the next round should be easier. This shouldn't just be true for low seeds, this should be true for every playoff matchup. Maybe then we won't see nearly as many healthy scratches if teams knew sitting stars in the regular season would result in automatic playoff losses.

And there are doctors saving lives working MUCH longer hours for WAY less money. Imagine Complaining about having to work hard 2 days in a row after traveling on a PJ 😂

CJ McCollum is intelligent and well spoken. Makes great points. He’s from my home town In Canton Ohio. I remember seeing him play in high school. Phenomenal player!

I love how CJ explained everything cool dude.

So sleep at 5AM to play at 6-7PM I don't know their schedules but that seems like enough time to do whatever

9:25 🤣🤣🤣

gotta love CJ, man just wants everyone to be happy

9:21 is gold.

CJ so articulate. Using "catch 22" to describe a scenario is something you don't hear everyday.

Players like Kyrie should have special type of contracts with incentives. If they did that. Some of this players won't just not decide when to play and when not to play

Jalen Rose's point of zeroing player's stats who sit out and aren't on the injury report would solve a lot. Add that with back to back scheduling will have to change as well. No easy solution though.

I didn't know CJ like that but he seems like a very solid choice for a representative of the player body and union

The NBA season should be 60-66 games. But will the players accept the pay cut that comes with it? And something should be done about players asking for trades.

My biggest issue with all of this is that NO OTHER sport has these issues, the NBA has grown so much and the money is so insane that it becomes an issue. NHL players never complain about 82 games and it’s a far more physical sport. It all comes down to the money now, a team wants to sit a guy down because he’s now worth X amount of money and if he gets hurt they’re fucked. The player wants to sit either because they’re lazy or because they’re worth X amount of money now and if they get hurt their careers fucked. But I guarantee you if the NBA tried to take away some of that money to give guys more incentive then the players would freak out and wouldn’t do it

In every sport injuries will happen. As an nba fan I prefer most players healthy when the playoffs begin. Regular season is long and its nice to see some awesome games and performances but watch a 7 game series with all the stars available is much more appealing to me as a fan.

When players sit out for load management, they should create other ways for them to make it up for the fans by signing autographs or taking pictures etc or some kind of fan interaction. so atleast it shows that they care and appreciate those for coming out

The NBA needs to become "Pro Fan"... If you're making 30 million a year to play basketball you should probably be on the court come game time. I recently looked up some players from the Jordan era and most of them played 70+ games a year. Jordan always said he felt obligated to be on the court because he needed to play for the kids that finally got a ticket to the game. Being injured is one thing but not playing because of rest is another.

Just fix the schedule and make the season like 65 games

Expand the rosters for teams. 1 or 2 more players. 🤷‍♂️ I don’t know if that’s a good idea though as it may have salary cap implications.

CJ is impressive. Scheduling is the answer. Lengthen the season. Or reduce the number of games.

If players have to load manage, at least do it in their home games.

Boomers loved when players destroyed their bodies and their lives for the game. Younger audiences want players to thrive in the game and out.

It’s always the guys who are playing for contractors are going to want to play. It could be a situation where a guy would have to play less minutes, or come off the bench. It comes down to a guy pacing and play within himself during the regular season.

i just wish they could just schedule which games players weren’t gonna play so fans don’t get scammed out of seeing their favorite players