Warriors coach Steve Kerr would take pay cut in exchange for lighter NBA schedule

Warriors coach Steve Kerr has a novel idea about the whole NBA rest issue: He’d be willing to take a pay cut in exchange for a shorter regular-season schedule.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to it, even at the expense to my own salary, but it’s something that everyone would have to agree to,” Kerr said, via ESPN, before the Warriors beat the Mavericks on Tuesday night. “I think even just going down to 75 games, I think that would make a dramatic difference in schedule. Now I don’t see that happening because there is money at stake for everybody.

“I do think this can be remedied though - maybe not remedied - but I think it can be dramatically helped with what the league is already working on for next year and the consideration of geographics when it comes to the schedule.”

Here’s the thing: Kerr might have some trouble getting nearly everyone else in the league to sign on to his plan:

The players, who like the 82-game pay they get.

His fellow coaches, who like the 82-game pay they get.

The NBA owners, who make money off the 41 home games they get every year.

TV executives, who pay massive amounts to broadcast the games and want as much content as possible.

Kerr makes $5 million per year as the Warriors’ coach. Based on the back-of-the-envelope math I just did, he’d probably still get by if the NBA shaved seven games’ worth of pay off his schedule. So could everyone else on the list above, probably. That doesn’t mean they’d agree to do it, though. Still, there’s nothing stopping the league from cutting down on the regular season: The most recently signed collective bargaining agreement only mandates that the regular season be no longer than 82 games. It doesn’t say anything about it being less.

The issue of resting NBA players is all the rage these days after the Cleveland Cavaliers sat out their top stars in consecutive Saturday night games that were televised in prime time by ABC. Commissioner Adam Silver said in a memo to the NBA’s owners this week that the topic will be discussed at the next Board of Governors meeting next month and warned of “significant penalties” for teams that fail to comply with NBA rules regarding advanced notice of resting players. But NBA coaches and personnel executives argue that resting players is the only way for teams to make it through the grind of the 82-game regular season as it’s currently construed.

Cutting that number down to, say, 75 games would be perhaps the most drastic yet easiest way to solve the problem. Good luck getting everyone to agree with it, though.