NBA Players Caught Napping--Literally

Yes, it's true; NBA players have been caught catching an extra nap here and there, but it's not necessarily a bad thing.

The All-Star point guard Steve Nash is 37 and knows that decline may come fast at his age. But his solution is not to increase his conditioning or to lift more weights. Instead, he plans to increase his naptime, seizing on an element of N.B.A. life as common as a 3-point shot.

If you nap every game day, all those hours add up and it allows you to get through the season better,” Nash said. “I want to improve at that, so by the end of the year, I feel better.”

Jonathan Abrams of The New York Times further reports that napping has become a crucial part of many NBA players' daily routines, helping them rest up and better prepare for upcoming competition. In addition to Nash, Grant Hill (both of whom played for Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni), Derrick Rose, LeBron James, and Kobe Bryant are among those who swear by their midday naps.

Catching up on sleep during the day only seems natural, as the average NBA player's schedule is filled with overnight flights, early morning practices, and more.

While Knicks rookie Andy Rautins has been catching on to the trend this season, his rookie-mate Landry Fields has been one-up on the situation for a little while longer.

Some enter the league with a better understanding of sleep science than others. While at Stanford, Landry Fields, the Knicks rookie, participated in a sleep study under Cheri Mah, a researcher at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory.

Fields wore a watch — “kind of like a mini-seismograph,” he said — that charted how much sleep he got each night.

Mah, who said she had also consulted with N.B.A., N.H.L., college teams and Olympians, said sports teams had started paying attention to the topic more in the last two years. She said athletes, in particular, were susceptible to sleep debt: an hour less of sleep a night here and there quickly accumulates.

Perhaps Adam Silver, the NBA's deputy commissioner, put it best: “Everyone in the league office knows not to call players at 3 p.m. It’s the player nap.”