Back In The Day NBA

NBA Triple-Double Great Questions Today's Load Management Era

Shandel Richardson

February 20, 2022; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; NBA great Oscar Robertson is honored for being selected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team during halftime in the 2022 NBA All-Star Game at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
February 20, 2022; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; NBA great Oscar Robertson is honored for being selected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team during halftime in the 2022 NBA All-Star Game at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images / Kyle Terada-Imagn Images

NBA great Wilt Chamberlain was known for lots of things during his life.

He scored 100 points in a game. He claimed he slept with thousands of women. He starred in movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Aside from those things, he was also known as a player who always performed for the fans on the court. Chamberlain averaged nearly 46 minutes during his career. The fact caused Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson to criticize today's load management NBA.

Robertson spoke about it during an appearance on the All The Smoke podcast.

"He played every minute," Robertson said of Chamberlain. "You see guys today, they're trying to worry about the minutes."

In the past 10 years, the league shifted toward the load management era. Players take games off for "maintenance" purposes. It's a rarity for anyone to play a full 82-game season. Chamberlain played at least 79 games 11 times in his career.

Robertson said there is no place in today's game for sitting out. He feels players make too much money for that. They also owe it to the fans to play.


“I think if you’re making $50 million a year, there’s no load management," Robertson said. "I think sometimes you owe it to the fans who come to see you play. The NBA owners and players are in this thing together. they're not in it alone. they've got to understand that."

Shandel Richardson is the publisher of Back In The Day Hoops. He can be reached at shandelrich@gmail.com

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Shandel Richardson
SHANDEL RICHARDSON

Shandel has covered the NBA since 2010, with previous stops at The Athletic and South Florida Sun-Sentinel.  He has covered six NBA Finals, one Super Bowl, the NCAA basketball tournament. He has also been a beat writer for the Miami Hurricanes and contributed on every major beat in South Florida since 2003, including the Miami Dolphins and Miami Marlins. He can also be read in the Sportsbook Review for gambling coverage from around the NBA. A native of Bloomington, Illinois, Shandel attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He's also worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Kansas City Star.  TWITTER: @ShandelRich EMAIL: shandelrich@gmail.com