Hawks’ quest: To sit, or not to sit

2. Atlanta; 23; $952,663

3. Memphis; 25; $2,718,229

4. Brooklyn; 35; $4,872,886

5. Dallas; 36; $1,991,728

MOST GAMES MISSED DUE TO INJURY

1. Indiana; 152; $16,359,006

2. Philadelphia; 150; $6,961,499

3. L.A. Lakers; 142; $7,816;852

4. Minnesota; 139; $10,564,395

5. Milwaukee; 126; $4,490,769

Paul Millsap said Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer was initially timid when Budenholzer approached his All-Star forward about sitting out a Jan. 13 game at Philadelphia. Budenholzer had attempted the same tactic the previous season as a rookie head coach but a couple of his players had shot him down.

But with the Hawks having won eight in a row at that point, the coach wouldn’t lose this battle.

“He knew how I was going to react to it, but I respected it,” Millsap said. “I knew it was about the bigger picture. Never want to stay out of the game. I understand it now. As I get older, I see how valuable that is.”

With Millsap and fellow starters DeMarre Carroll and Jeff Teague all also sitting, the Hawks won that game and won again the next night in Boston when Budenholzer rested the other starters, Al Horford and Kyle Korver. During that week, the Hawks had a cruel stretch of four road games in five days, the kind of punishing schedule that will wear out even the best-conditioned team.

“The NBA,” Millsap said, “is cruel.”

But not as cruel to the Hawks. Through 41 games, Hawks players missed just 23 games this season, second-fewest in the NBA. according to the website instreetclothes,com, which tracks injuries across the league. While a calf injury to guard Thabo Sefolosha, which could cost him two months on the sidelines, will skew that number, an argument can be made that fresher players are not as injury-prone.

With such a heavy schedule — the Hawks will average one game every 2.1 days this season — the question might be why don’t more teams rest players more frequently?

In Major League Baseball, with 162 games, it’s fairly routine to give an occasional night off to a veteran. But in the NBA, the NHL and, of course, the NFL, resting starters is a rarity unless it’s late in the season and a team has cemented its playoff status.

“It’s two-fold,” said former Brave Ron Gant, who once played 157 games in 1993. “One, it helps you a ton physically. I think it helps you more mentally than it does physically, especially in baseball. … Every once in a while, you hit a wall and can’t get out of it.”

Former Falcon and current Fox Sports analyst and CNN contributor Coy Wire said NFL coaches rest players; they just don’t come out and say so. He said if a star player is coming off injury, he might be able to play but the coach will want to give him more time to recover. In that case, teams deactivate stars for less-important regular season games.

“You never heard anyone say that,” Wire said. “It’s not talked about but it’s generally understood.”

Wire also said if the NFL went ahead with its push to expand to 18 games, resting star players could become more common. He said the reason the practice goes unspoken is because, with only eight home games, ticket-buyers pay to see the stars and coaches don’t want to upset fans — or owners.

That is exactly what got San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich, Budenholzer’s mentor and the man from whom he likely got the idea, in hot water in November 2012. After Popovich sent several starters home before a nationally televised game on the road against Miami — a rematch of the previous season’s NBA Finals — then-commissioner David Stern fined the Spurs $250,000.

“I don’t think anybody, including Pop or the Spurs, wants to be fined,” Budenholzer said. “That was probably just unfortunate, unusual circumstances that the league felt it was necessary. So if we can avoid that, that would be a preferable way to go about doing what’s best for the team and the players.”

With a new commissioner in Adam Silver and perhaps more evolved thinking, Budenholzer seems to suggest that the league might not levy such a hefty fine again. Budenholzer partially side-stepped a question as to whether he would risk a fine to do what he thought was right.

“I think there’s a lot better dialogue and understanding and appreciation,” he said. “Everybody’s always learning and growing — teams and players and organizations, the league — so I think there’s a lot of good things that are probably being discussed and considered on every level of NBA basketball.”

Could this mean American sport has truly stepped into a more enlightened era?

Maybe not in the ACC. When Florida State women’s soccer coach Mark Krikorian decided play the 2010 conference tournament with seven starters back in Tallahassee resting for the upcoming NCAA playoffs, FSU was fined $25,000 by ACC commissioner John Swofford and had to forfeit another $15,000 in travel reimbursements.

But then consider English soccer’s Premier League, which boasts some of the globe’s most popular teams and highest-paid players. On Jan. 10, Liverpool allowed one of its stars, 20-year-old Raheem Sterling, not only to sit out a league match but to go on vacation to Jamaica, where he posted a selfie in which he donned a floppy sun hat. This came after a stretch in which Liverpool had played four times between Dec. 21 and Jan. 1, the equivalent of an NFL team playing Sunday-Thursday games twice in a row.

Major League Soccer Atlanta president Darren Eales worked for a Premier League club, Tottenham, before taking over his new position. He said while some fans might grumble, the practice of “squad rotation” is generally accepted in Europe. In addition to 38 league games, top Premier League teams have several other tournaments in which they participate during the same season.

“Now the game is so much faster, so much more physical,” Eales said. “It’s impossible to play at full pelt (speed) for 55 games in a season with all of the travel. … You need to squad rotate to win trophies and be most effective. At one level, a fan might be disappointed that a player’s not playing in that game. But on another level he understands the bigger picture that it’s about getting results and where you finish at the end of the season.”

Eales said Premier League teams use advanced sports science and closely monitor players as they train, practicing the philosophy of “periodization” both within the week and the context of the season. Players are always tapering for maximum energy for game day.

With the Hawks tearing through their schedule, it’s possible Budenholzer could rest players again to prepare for the playoffs. Circle the end of March. The Hawks will again face four games in five days between March 27-31.

Korver said sitting some starters helps to develop depth. In the recent not-so-good-old days of Josh Smith and Joe Johnson, it would be unimaginable for the Hawks to have rested that duo.

Center Elton Brand, who benefits through increased playing time when the starters rest, offered a quip.

“It’s definitely a hard sell to the fans, especially when they want to see certain superstars play,” he said, “But they say we don’t have any superstars, so they don’t mind us.”