Nets: In today's NBA, there is rest for weary

WASHINGTON — When it comes to the way NBA load management conversations have changed, Dennis Smith Jr. thought back to his rookie season with the Mavericks.

That 2017-18 season coincided with Dirk Nowitzki’s 19th and second-to-last season. Teams were mindful of managing a player’s minutes by then, but Smith didn’t recall that happening with Nowitzki even at that stage of his career.

“How was Dirk that year?” Smith asked Dorian Finney-Smith, his former Mavericks and current Nets teammate, who sat nearby at shootaround. “He was playing every game. He just didn’t practice.”

The future Hall of Famer started and played 77 games that season. Finney-Smith laughed and added that Nowitzki likely was getting massages instead of practicing.

But Smith was aware that teams are much different with players’ availability. Wednesday’s loss to the Bucks — and the backlash the Nets faced — brought the issue to the forefront again.

With the Nets’ reporting 18,911 in attendance at Barclays Center, Cam Johnson and Nic Claxton sat because of injury management and Spencer Dinwiddie rested. Finney-Smith also was ruled out with left knee soreness and three more players, including Mikal Bridges, didn’t play after the first quarter.

Bridges’ disapproval of the Nets’ strategy gave voice to a growing sentiment from fans and pundits who are against teams resting players. But most players — including Bridges — know these decisions are coming with input from performance staffs who are monitoring their health far more closely and with more data than ever before.

“There’s a certain level of conversation, but at the same time, you’re still technically employees, right? So like, your boss tells you to do something, you do it,” Dinwiddie said. “And it’s not on us to complain or anything like that. You just do our jobs at the end of the day.

“I think we have a phenomenal group of hyper-competitive guys that want to win every game, but also we just want to do our jobs at the best level that we possibly can.”

Smith, who’s had two back injuries this season, said he’s fine deferring to training staffs’ advice. He’s played more than 50 games only twice since his rookie year, so he understands that despite his wishes, he might be better off long term sitting if it’ll benefit him.

“If I feel good, I’m going to play,” Smith said. “That might not work for everybody and then sometimes, it’s not always the smartest thing for me to do. Like, I’d be like, ‘All right, I feel all right, I can play,' and then the whole time I’m going out there and messing something else up.”

Dinwiddie, in his 10th season, also noted that teams engage their veterans more about how they’re feeling compared to rookies or less experienced players. As Smith saw with Nowitzki, an older player might do less to be better prepared for games.

Younger players? Dinwiddie recalled that as a rookie, he’d show up at practice two hours early and later do extra work after practice with assistant coaches before leaving two or three hours later. Now it’s different, with the team asking him what work he wants to focus on.

“I think in any job, if you’ve been in a job for five, 10, 20 years, then you get a different level of conversation that’s more ‘ask’ versus more ‘tell,’ ” Dinwiddie said.

Players ultimately may not agree with sitting out games, especially if they’re relatively healthy. But they understand this is the new landscape.

The times have changed since six seasons ago, when Smith saw Nowitzki play 70-plus games for the last time. But there’s also trust in the training and performance staffs that it’s for the best if there’s more rest.

“They are professionals. This is what they went to school for,” Smith said. “We played basketball in school and they learned how to take care of us while they were in school, so you must let people do their job.”

By Evan Barnes

evan.barnes@newsday.comevan_b

Evan Barnes covers the Giants for Newsday. He previously covered the Brooklyn Nets, Memphis football and the Memphis Grizzlies and also covered prep sports in Los Angeles.