NBA and NFL’s league offices are two different beasts entirely. They are viewed in such different public lights with one having the support of its fans while the other being hated for every little thing they do. What’s funny is the NBA acted like the NFL by telling the Chicago Bulls to stop resting veteran players, and no one seemed to care. The Association saw what the Bulls were doing with Justin Holiday and Robin Lopez and asked that they be inserted back into the starting lineup to prevent obvious tanking. From the Mothership…

“After the All-Star break, we had communication with the league office about Robin and Justin’s roles,” said Bulls executive vice president John Paxson. “After healthy dialogue, the league determined that their situations fall into the ‘player rest’ policy. We respect the communication and cooperative dialogue with the league and will adhere to their recommendations going forward.

If this happened in the NFL, people would be losing their shit. But because Adam Silver walks on water, no one really cares that he’s telling teams directly how to run their teams for the final stretch of games. A part of me feels weird about it. Another part of me thinks the Bulls are complete idiots for being too obvious that they were trying to lose games. One question to think about with this tanking drama is if this were Sacramento, would the league care? Bulls are a top five franchise who sells out more games than not, and they know if the fans see what they did against Boston, they’ll stop showing up. Think the idea of tanking for Bulls fans is part of the reason for making the notice to the team.

Bulls currently have the eighth and 25th pick (New Orleans) in the 2018 NBA draft. They are dangerously close to being anywhere from the projected top five with five teams bunch together. Let’s see if the league puts out more tanking notices.