The NBA has a hot topic that’s been brewing for a while and is taking the talking heads by storm this season: Load management.
Michael Jordan — one of the greatest NBA players of all time — is calling bulls**t.
Many gay fans are raising an eyebrow too.
No, this isn’t about Dwight Howard’s legal troubles.
In the NBA, load management is the practice of limiting the number of games a healthy NBA player plays to — allegedly — prevent injury and fatigue. It started popping up in a bigger way years ago, as science, numbers and statistics began playing a bigger role in the decision-making of front offices.
The process entails uploading a bunch of information about practice hours, sleep and a host of other data to determine when the player is bumping up against his load capacity.
Ahem.
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Two years ago it had gotten so bad that NBA commissioner Adam Silver put forward a policy about it.
“This is ultimately about the fans,” Silver said at the time. “And that we’ve taken this [load management] too far. This is an acknowledgment that it has gotten away from us a bit.”
It still hasn’t gone away, driving Mike Tirico to recently ask Jordan about it in a recent interview.
“What do you think of when you hear the term ‘load management’ thrown around?” Tirico asked.
“It shouldn’t be needed,” Jordan said, adding that he never wanted to miss a chance to play.
Michael Jordan shares his thoughts on load management on the second installment of MJ: Insights to Excellence.
“I never wanted to miss a game because it was an opportunity to prove…the fans are there to watch me play." pic.twitter.com/h7g6krplDQ
— NBA on NBC and Peacock (@NBAonNBC) October 29, 2025
“I felt like, the fans are there that watch me play, I want to impress that guy way up on top who probably worked… to get a ticket.”
The number of gays in New York and L.A. thinking, “That sounds like GBU, not the NBA,” could fill Madison Square Garden.
In many gay circles — as you may have guessed — the term “load management” has a slightly different meaning.
“What are you doing the other 21 hours?” Jordan continued in his response to Tirico. “To me that’s when you should be preparing for… your next challenge.”
Ummmm… are you SURE he’s not talking about GBU?
Certainly everybody needs a break from time to time. And if NBA players and their team doctor think they’re getting too close to their ultimate load count, it seems they should be able to take a night off.
The double entendres write themselves.
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