Timberwolves fans need to come to grips with important new NBA rule
By Bret Stuter
The Minnesota Timberwolves and Timberwolves fans must come to grips with the new NBA Rules. What rules? Well, as Timberwolves All-Star shooting guard Anthony Edwards himself pointed out, the practice of NBA teams sitting stars for no medically documented reason has gotten well out of hand. And so, the NBA is weighing in with new rules, and accompanying penalties, to thwart the practice.
ESPN’s latest article: How the NBA’s new rules on resting stars will work details the complex matter and breaks it down into relatively common layman’s terminology. The new rule – the Player Participation Policy (PPP) – is a more rigid set of criteria that replaces the 2017 instituted Player Resting Policy (PRP).
4 Timberwolves PPP stars
This new set of rules impacts NBA teams over the availability of star players. So, who are defined as ‘star players,’ on the Minnesota Timberwolves roster? Per the ESPN report, the following players qualify as ‘stars,’ for this rule:
- SG Anthony Edwards
- PG Mike Conley Jr
- C Rudy Gobert
- PF Karl-Anthony Towns
Curiously, only the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Golden State Warriors have four players that meet the ‘star,’ criteria.
Of course, there will be no problem for the Timberwolves to ensure that Anthony Edwards is ready to go. However, with four stars on the Timberwolves roster, there are far more opportunities to slip up than an Oklahoma City Thunder team with just one player who qualifies as a ‘star’. So what are the rules?