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?
NBA PPP Rules
So what exactly are the new NBA Player Participation Policy (PPP) rules, and which of the new rules should Timberwolves fans be most concerned about? Let’s go over them and discuss them one by one:
Rule I – No more than 1 star player is unavailable for the same game.
That’s going to be problematic for a team like the Minnesota Timberwolves, a team with four such players. In short, three players must play and only one player can rest is awkward, and clearly favors teams that have fewer than two stars on their rosters.
Rule II – Teams must ensure that star players are available for national TV and in-season tournament games.
The Timberwolves get a minor break here. Because the Timberwolves only have five non-NBA-TV nationally televised games, and only 10 of 72 games televised nationally, this rule will be less applicable than some of the other rules.
Rule III – Teams must maintain a balance between the number of one-game absences for a star player in home games and road games – with a preference for those absences to happen in home games.
The rule will force the Timberwolves to manage multiple back-to-backs quite carefully, as it is now no longer a matter of which player to rest in a back-to-back, but ensuring that the distribution of resting stars impacts Target Center as much as other NBA teams.
Rule IV – Teams must refrain from any long-term shutdown – or near shutdown – when a star player stops participating in games or plays in a materially reduced role in circumstances affecting the integrity of the game.
Thankfully, this rule should not impact the Timberwolves. When teams that are no longer in the running for the NBA Playoffs want to consider trade options after the season ends, it’s been common practice to overstate a medical condition to rest that player to close out an NBA season. This rule will now trigger an investigation, and risk strict fines if guilty.
Rule V – Teams must ensure that healthy players resting for a game are present and visible to fans.
This is simply continuing the 2017 PRP rules.
What happens if a team breaks a PPP Rule?
In a short summary, it gets expensive.
Violations can pile up quickly, and will trigger the following financial penalties:
- First offense – $100,000 fine
- Second offense – $250,000 fine
- Third offense – $1,250,000 fine
- Fourth and beyond offenses – $1,000,000 plus previous fine
So a four-time offense will pay fines of $100K, $250K, $1.25M, and $2.25M respectively. As you can see, it will be worthwhile for every NBA team to hire a personnel executive whose sole purpose is to aid the coaching staff in ensuring compliance with the ever-growing complexity of managing their NBA rosters.
More information
So why now? Well, the NBA is trying to launch a counter-offensive to a growing perception that NBA players are far softer than players in the past. Also, there is an ever-increasing revenue stream to the NBA coffers from casinos and online gambling. With more revenue, the game is implementing strategies to ensure that the outcomes of games do not seem to be subjectively impacted by player availability.
The current list of star players will increase. With each new season, names of players who will appear in the NBA All-Star Game will be added to the list in February. Once added, teams will be required to ensure that they are handled in accordance with this policy as well.
Do teams have any relief? The NBA PPP rules allow for several exceptions that will be granted, including:
- 35 years old on opening night or have career workloads of 34,000 regular-season minutes or 1,000 regular-season and playoff games combined (Mike Conley)
- Multigame absences for bona fide injury
- Personal reasons
- Rare and unusual circumstances
- Roster management of unavailable star players
- End-of-season flexibility
The new rule allows the NBA to investigate injury designations of star players if such injuries create a perception of non-compliance with the new PPP rule.
In short, five NBA teams are not impacted at all. 49 players are named in this new NBA rule, and the Minnesota Timberwolves have four of the 49 named players. That translates into 8.2 percent of the impact of this rule falls squarely on the shoulders of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Timberwolves fans.
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