“It’s Only November!” and “But Doc said…”
Ryan: Next one: “It’s only November. Why does he need to rest only a few weeks in?”
Seth: If the team has come up with a training regimen, I would assume you wouldn’t want to follow that just for half the season. I’d have to guess that they’ve got the year planned out. So it’s probably not that he needs rest now. It’s that this is a way to keep him fresh throughout the season.
Cannon: If his injury is truly degenerative, he is justified in resting whenever. The options are either to preserve him for more important games or use him in all 82 regular-season games and watch him retire after 12 seasons.
Seth: The Allen Iverson special.
Ryan: Alright, for the next one, I’ll chime in a bit. Seth and I already sort of had this conversation, so I know we have slightly opposing viewpoints. “Doc Rivers and the team said Kawhi was going to play this season!”
Seth: As we talked about earlier, Ryan, this is the one I kind of agree with.
Ryan: Right. And I do and don’t. On one hand, there was a feeling we would be seeing Kawhi a lot this season. On the other hand, the Clippers were smart with their wording. I think of the classic Obi-Wan “from a certain point of view” line when he tells Luke he didn’t lie about Vader but also wasn’t completely upfront.
Cannon: As far as I know, they never said Kawhi wouldn’t rest at all. They said it wouldn’t be as severe as it was in Toronto. I take that as him still sitting out one game of back-to-backs, but not taking a week-long vacation in January.
Seth: And I’ll take some of the blame here. When they came out and said “there won’t be a load management plan like last year,” a lot of us interpreted that as “there won’t be load management.” When actually they’re now kind of going, “No no. There won’t be one like last year. It’s a different load management plan.”
Ryan: Back in September, Dan Woike tweeted this:
One takeaway from time with Doc Rivers/Lawrence Frank today - Kawhi Leonard’s “load management” will not be as strict as it was a season ago in Toronto.
— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) September 20, 2019
Right, Seth. “Not as strict”. I also looked back to Kawhi and Paul George‘s introductory press conference. Kawhi does say he feels healthy, but he also includes “It’s just one of those things we take day-by-day”.
Seth: In our piece on his load management, Kawhi is asked if he’ll be on a load management plan like last year and he said “No. I mean, I was injured last year coming in, so that was the only way I could play the schedule and not really affect the team and the outcomes. So this year will be a lot different.”
Cannon: I think it will be interesting to see if they let him rest in the early rounds of the playoffs.
Seth: Again, I’m not raising the pitchforks or anything, but I feel like it’s at least understandable that some of us didn’t expect him to start missing back to backs two or three weeks in, given what’s being said.