Aaron Gordon has released strong recommendations to Adam Silver and the NBA on tight playoff scheduling.
In the aftermath of the Denver Nuggets’ brutal end-of-season Game 7 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, superstar Aaron Gordon sought a longer break among participating teams in the postseason.
Despite his hamstring injury, Gordon, who played bravely in the series finale against OKC, believes that a considerable amount of rest will promote greater health and more competitive playoff basketball displays.
“I think the game’s product will be much better on the days between the game, not just on holidays and travel days, but on travel days and recovery days, just two days,” Gordon argued.
“There’s a better product on the floor and you can get another day off for all these professional athletes. Perhaps there’s less high-level basketball and pimples.”
Given how much the NBA playoffs have been hurting the league as a whole, Gordon’s comments sparked a ton of reactions across the basketball world.
Already this postseason, Damian Lillard and Jason Tatum suffered a torn Achilles injury.
The possibility of continuing the Golden State Warriors’ progress was a huge hit when Stephen Curry maintained the hamstring issue that led to the exit of the second round of five games against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Many expressed Gordon’s words and agreement, but that was not a completely unified response.
Former NBA star and Chicago Bulls champion Ron Harper, who posted on X, rejected the Nuggets star’s proposal for playoff scheduling.
Harper writes:
Gordon personally reflected on what he and Nugget had to go through this postseason.
Away from a tired seven-game battle in the opening round with the LA Clippers, witnessing the casualties of other injuries from Michael Porter Jr. (shoulder), Jamal Murray (illness), and Russell Westbrook (hand), Denver really had a difficult path to block his chances of winning it again.
However, it is worth pointing out that if they had won the series 4-0 like Thunder, they would have benefited from a longer break too.
The Indiana Pacers, for example, are healthy, and everything is ready for the East Final after dragging the Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers through separate gentlemen’s sweeps. The same applies to the Timberwolves who defeated both the LA Lakers and the Warriors in the process.
After lifting 2-1, Gordon might now be healthy if he and the Nuggets were able to clinch the series by defeating the Thunder in Winnable Games 4 and 5 and reach the West Final via OKC.