Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle has called the NBA out over the $100,000 fine the team received for violating the league’s player participation policy.
The Pacers and the Utah Jazz were punished for sitting players the league determined were fit enough to play earlier this month. However, Carlisle claims the league never even consulted team doctors or spoke to the players themselves.
Indiana left Pascal Siakam, Bennedict Mathurin, T.J. McConnell, Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith out on the second night of a back-to-back against the Utah Jazz on February 3. In the NBA’s view, this amounted to conduct detrimental to the integrity of competition and a form of tanking, which it has been fighting to curb.
Carlisle made his weekly appearance on radio station 107.5 The Fan this week and accused the league of deciding on their own that the players were healthy enough to be on the floor.
“The league lawyer that was doing the interview kind of unilaterally decided Aaron Nesmith, who had been injured the night before and couldn’t hold the ball, should have played in the game, which just seems ridiculous,” he said (H/T ESPN). “And during the interview process — I was not in on it but I heard the details — we asked them if they wanted to talk to the doctors, our doctors about it because it was something documented by our doctors and trainers. They said no, they didn’t need to. They talked to their doctors, who did not examine Aaron Nesmith.
