Have you heard the news?
My colleague spoke in hushed tones, alarm palpable in her voice.
I wondered what this news could be. I was about to head to my first Milwaukee Bucks game, so it was probably basketball related.
Did the Bucks trade a player away? Did someone get hurt during practice? I brimmed with anticipation.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is sitting the game out, my colleague replied. So is Khris Middleton. Load management.
Antetokounmpo and Middleton were Milwaukee’s two best players. They weren’t hurt, but they were sitting out anyway – all part of a ploy by Milwaukee coaches to keep them fresh.
The upshot was that I’d still be going to the Bucks game, but not getting the full experience. What I would later witness was a narrow victory over an inferior opponent.
I did my best to take this in stride. I was only in town for a few days for work. There was no option to go to a different Bucks game.
Yet, something about the situation didn’t sit right with me. It still doesn’t.
More than a decade before that game in Milwaukee, a friend and I boarded a coach bus bound for a snowy parking lot in New Jersey. We were headed to see the Los Angeles Lakers play the New Jersey Nets.
The Nets were historically bad that year, and tickets were historically affordable. My friend and I weren’t going to miss our chance to see Kobe Bryant play in person for the first time.
Kobe did indeed suit up in the Lakers vaunted purple and gold uniforms. From the upper deck, we watched him pour in 29 points to lead Los Angeles to a road victory.
It was never in doubt.
And yet, if that game had taken place a decade later, it wouldn’t have been such a sure thing. With a winter storm raging outside the arena, an overmatched opponent across the court, and six days to go until a Christmas showdown on national television, maybe Kobe would have been held out of action.
Our tickets would have been devalued. The opportunity to see an all-time great stolen away from us.
This hypothetical is reality these days, as my Milwaukee experience showed. Load management is as much a part of basketball as the pick and roll.
The movement is driven primarily by math.
With half of all National Basketball Association teams making the playoffs each year, the regular season has become a formality. The teams who can rattle off 16 wins in the postseason get all the glory — no matter how many victories they racked up in the preceding six months.
Health and energy are paramount for this quest. And a challenging schedule — featuring several games on back-to-back days and long flights to faraway cities — threatens to deplete star players before the spring hits full swing.
So, teams turn the tide by sitting star players now and then. They hope the rest rejuvenates these key contributors without leaving them rusty upon their return.
The practice has enveloped pro basketball, and it’s shifted to other sports as well.
This pattern seems to map to those of corporate America. Employees in that world are encouraged to take time off ahead of busy season. That way, they’re rejuvenated for crunch time.
But corporate workers don’t perform their duties in front of thousands of paying fans. Their desks are not broadcast to the world. And their bosses are the only ones scrutinizing their off time.
The comparison is apples and oranges. But it all might be moot.
Back in 2007, the Dallas Cowboys had a dominant season.
Dallas won 13 of its first 15 games, wrapping up prime positioning for the postseason, including an automatic bye through the first round of games. With little to play for in the regular season finale, the Cowboys held out most of their star players — effectively giving them two weeks off.
Two weeks later, the Dallas Cowboys returned to their home field against the rival New York Giants, who they’d beaten twice during the fall. But the third time was the charm for New York, who looked sharper and more desperate.
The Giants took the game. The Cowboys were left with nothing.
In the days after Dallas’ playoff loss, the tabloids were buzzing. During the off week, quarterback Tony Romo had traveled to a resort in Mexico with his then-girlfriend — pop star Jessica Simpson — and two of his teammates. The ill-timed vacation had quashed the Cowboys intensity, dooming the season. Or so the pundits said.
It all sounded sensational. But this might not have been too far off track.
You see, for all the “conventional wisdom” about employees taking some time away before crunch time, there’s little evidence of its effectiveness. In fact, many employees return to the fray out of sync. They’re a step behind heading into a critical moment in their professional life.
Why should we expect this to be any different for professional athletes, who face off against elite competition week after week?
We shouldn’t. And the 2007 Cowboys show us why.
This is why I can’t get on board with load management. It’s not just the coddling of multimillionaire athletes that rubs me the wrong way. It’s also the ineptitude of the mission itself.
Sports leagues are finally starting to crack down on load management. They’re drafting new protocols for player rest, hoping the restrictions allow fans to witness the feats of stars in-person.
But why rely on a set of rules to set everyone straight? Karma itself is a powerful teacher.
The 2007 Dallas Cowboys are but one example of a top-billed team stumbling after a bout of load management. It’s happened at least seven more times in pro football since then, and three times in baseball.
And load management ultimately did in the Milwaukee Bucks. Not two months after I saw their “B Squad” in action, the “A Team” fell in the second round of the playoffs.
These are the outcomes we know about, of course. How many similar flameouts have taken place in corporate offices, after load management efforts went awry? Likely hundreds.
Have we not seen enough?
It’s time to recognize that rest vs. rust is a fallacy. It’s time to accept that load management is self-sabotage. And it’s time to chart a better course of action.
Whether we perform under the lights or far away from the glare, the world expects much of us. And it’s on us to deliver.
There are no shortcuts to success. Act accordingly.