Not faking. This time of year anyone can have knee soreness or ankle soreness or plantar fasciitis you need to manage. Sit the vets on b2bs. Stiffness, soreness, tendinitis is not hard to find.
Don’t be nefarious… but a couple trades and benching a guy to see what a rookie has and you go on a 2-8 game stint.
As far as competition committees go… OKC shut down SGA multiple times for plantar fasciitis … no consequence. They shut down Al Horford for 50 games just because and no consequence… the tanking raps shut down Lowry for no reason… zero consequence. Resting Lauri, Mike, JC for 5 games out of 30 for various reasons… is really easy.