Former Philadelphia 76ers and Cleveland Cavaliers head coach John Lucas recently gave his take on the modern idea of load management in the NBA. Talking about his own teams, he claimed that he had no idea what load management was back when he was a head coach. Lucas said that during his tenure at the Philadelphia 76ers, Charles Barkley himself used to wash his uniform in the shower because they used to play back-to-back-to-back games without any rest.
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The 71-year-old compared the situation to what he sees today, claiming that players today tend to ask for 1-day-rests in order to prepare themselves for games which were still a few days away. Speaking on the Fresh 24 podcast with Marc Zumoff, Lucas outlined the changes the NBA has seen over the years, suggesting that load management as a concept would be laughed at, back then.
“I tell the guys all the time, we never knew anything about load management. We played back to back to back. You guys tell me, ‘I got to take a day rest’, what are you talking about?” he said, before bringing up Chuck.
Lucas said that Barkley was only one of the players who would wash his uniform in the shower after games. “The guys in my locker room, Charles, he is a Philly guy, Charles was talking on TV, and Kenny Smith was on with him and didn’t even realize this. He was there that we did used to wash our uniforms in the shower, because we would play back to back to back games,” Lucas claimed, before outlining the extent of differences the NBA has seen since he was a player.
Lucas himself was a number 1 pick in the 1976 NBA draft and claimed that he was making slightly more than a million a year. On the other hand, players today tend to make that much right from the 15th pick, he claimed. That, alongside the other positive changes that the NBA has seen, made Lucas conclude that players simply need to give more than they tend to, nowadays.
“I said, you know the commissioner’s got all of this on the floor, Black Lives matter, all of these things going on and you guys want to leave because we were down there for 3 months,” he said, talking about some players who wanted to leave for home once the NBA Bubble concluded.
John Lucas airs Charles Barkley’s sentiments when it comes to load management
Lucas was part of the 1977 NBA All-Rookie first team and started his coaching career with the Miami Tropics. He then moved to the Philadelphia 76ers after a brief stint with the San Antonio Spurs as the head coach.
From 1994-96, Lucas worked with Charles Barkley and appeared to be well aware of the changing NBA culture since then. Chuck had himself claimed recently that he was not a fan of load management, claiming that players who are fit and healthy enough to play should simply be playing, according to Bleacher Report.
That seems to be exactly what the NBA has also sought to do, starting from this season. A range of rules related to load management such as the need for a balance between home and road games missed by star players, as well as long-term shutdowns for star players due to load management to be avoided, have been introduced by the league, according to Yahoo.
Furthermore, franchises are also not allowed to rest two-star players in the same game. This is for National TV games, as well as In-Season tournament games, which were introduced this season.
