The NBA fined the Brooklyn Nets $100,000 on Thursday after they rested four players in their loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Dec. 27.
The Nets are the first team to be sanctioned for violating the league's player participation policy, which took effect starting this season.
Starters Spencer Dinwiddie, Cam Johnson and Nic Claxton, along with reserve forward Dorian Finney-Smith, were held out of the matchup. Three players who started for the Nets in that game -- Mikal Bridges, Royce O'Neale and Cam Thomas -- each logged fewer than 12 minutes apiece as the Bucks won 144-122.
“We’ve talked to all 30 teams about, ‘Hey, there is a way to rest your players,’" NBA executive vice president and head of basketball operations Joe Dumars said. “What we’ve said is sitting four or five guys at one time is not that way. So, if you want to get your players rest, there are ways to do this. But if you do it in a way where it becomes egregious in terms of sitting four or five guys at a time, that’s just not what we’re about in an 82-game league.”
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The Nets had played a road game against the Detroit Pistons a day before returning to Barclays Center to host the Bucks.
“I've got to think short term and long term and make executive decisions for the betterment of the group,” Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn said before the Dec. 27 game. “So that's where we're at tonight.”
The NBA's new player participation policy was approved in September. Teams are fined $100,000 for their first violation, $250,000 for their second violation and then an additional $1 million for any further violations.
NBA
“This is not about, ‘You can’t rest your players,’” Dumars said. “It’s about how you do it, and that’s not the way to do it.”
