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It’s no longer secondhand commentary. Michael Jordan directly spoke on load management. His verdict on it might not be what trainers and medical staff, maybe even some athletes, want to hear. As much as it carries weight when His Airness says it, there is the other side. Someone Jordan himself handpicked to continue his legacy had thoughts on his comments. Carmelo Anthony may not be the ideal person to comment on this but he presents a solution to the dilemma Jordan’s put the league in. With NBA on NBC back for its second week, it was another installment of MJ’s Insights to Excellence. This time Mike Tirico jumped to the burning question of load management. The Bulls legend expected it. The anti-load management faction likes to claim ‘Jordan played 82’ (for 11 seasons out of 15) against this argument. He must know he’s about to create a lot of awkwardness when he hesitantly say, “It shouldn’t be needed, first and foremost.” But was more direct citing his own example. “I never wanted to miss a game because it was an opportunity to prove…the fans are there to watch me play. I wanted to impress that guy way up on top who probably worked his ass off to get a ticket or to get the money to buy the ticket.” ADVERTISEMENT Article continues below this ad In the NBC studio, Vince Carter agreed with MJ. The dissenting opinion came from Melo, who’d been on MJ’s radar to be the face of the Jordan Brand since high school. While he says, “I have to play,” he added, “I understand the sense science of all of this, too. If the science is, you gotta have science and you gotta have a feel for it, too. If you feel like you can’t get out there and play, then don’t go out there. It’s very simple.” ADVERTISEMENT Article continues below this ad The ‘science’ of it, what the experts teams hire say is to prevent injuries. The effectivity of it is the hot button topic of old school NBA vs new school NBA. And now MJ has given the examples of him spraining his leg in his rookie year and the famous Flu Game as examples of him playing through injuries and sickness. Whereas Carmelo Anthony had an infamous incident in his rookie year when he ‘pulled a Scottie Pippen.’ He reacted to his Denver teammates’ criticism by refusing to play. Jordan gave the then-19-year-old Melo some sage advice that made him hash it out with his teammate. He’d never pull a stunt like this for the rest of his career. Read Top Stories First From EssentiallySports Click here and check box next to EssentiallySports Carmelo Anthony works around Michael Jordan’s advice Michael Jordan told a young Melo to not take out his problems on the court. Whether it was Pippen or Melo, he’s stuck to his policy of there’s no reason to miss a game. This time he said on load management, “now physically, if I can’t do it, then I can’t do it. But physically, if I can do it, and I just don’t feel like doing it, that’s a whole different lens.” ADVERTISEMENT Article continues below this ad Jordan believes that players need to manage their time off the court for recovery. Now he admits he’s not the ideal standard for that, what with a history of playing poker with rivals or golf until hours before the game. Yet he’d not go up to Phil Jackson and say he’s not in the mood. That attitude, Melo agrees with as much as he agrees with data-driven load management. “We can also utilize the analytics and the science to figure out when am I reaching my peak? What do I need to do? Do I need to dumb it down a little bit to be able to play? To be able to play. But if I’m, I’m not just going in there saying, you know, coach tonight, I’m not, you know, I’m not playing in the Utah game next week. Like, it’s not, we shouldn’t have that in the game.” That, Vince could get behind. But he too is not the unbiased commentator on this subject as his NBC colleagues reminded him he wanted to play through injuries and was benched a lot.
