The Utah Jazz organization was fined for sitting leading scorer Lauri Markkanen without a valid reason.
Enforcing its player participation policy, the NBA fined the Utah Jazz $100,000 for not making the 7-foot Finnish player available last week.
“The violation occurred when the Jazz failed to make Lauri Markkanen, a star player under the Policy, available for the team’s game against the Washington Wizards on March 5 at Capital One Arena, as well as other recent games,” the league wrote in a press release.
The statement concluded., “The Policy, which was adopted prior to the 2023-24 season, is intended to promote participation in the NBA’s regular season.”
The league has faced increasing criticism about its product and its ratings due to star players sitting out for too many games. Former NHL player P.K. Subban even gave a viral rant recently on why he does not respect many NBA players who do not play for the love of the game.
League rules state that teams may only sit more than one “star player” at a time for specific reasons, which were outlined in changes before the 2023-2024 season.
The Player Participation Policy defines a star player as “any player who, in any of the prior three seasons, was selected to an All-NBA Team or an NBA All-Star team.”
The rule also applies to any player who was named an All-Star during the current, ongoing season.
Markkanen is indeed considered a star player after making the All-Star game in 2022-2023. He is also the leading point scorer for the Jazz in 2024-2025, with 19.2 points per game.
Under league rules, there are a few select valid reasons for a team to sit more than one star player. Those include an authentic injury, personal reasons like a birth of a child or death in the family, “rare and unusual circumstances” per league approval, and certain end-of-season circumstances.
If a player is over 35 years old or meets a certain threshold of minutes played in the NBA, a team can also rest that player if the team plays on back-to-back nights.
Despite these rules and consistent complaints that players are sitting out too much, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has consistently reinforced the idea that the league is doing fine and has good television ratings.
Silver suggested possibly shortening NBA games from 48 minutes to 40 minutes recently, to help with “load management,” a buzzword that refers to players wanting more rest and having to manage their output.
The Jazz are currently the second-worst team in the league, with a .227 winning percentage (15-51), and are being accused of sitting their stars in an attempt to finish as low in the standings as possible. The worst team in the league currently is the Washington Wizards, who have a .203 winning percentage (13-51).
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Fearless, Nba, Load management, Utah jazz, Adam silver, Sports
