Up until today, I’ve always thought that once a player is placed on the IL, he will have to miss at least five games. However, this article about Duncan being placed on the IL (on YahooSports) says otherwise:
An bit on ESPN.com mentioned that he will, in fact, be out for five games, but said nothing about the Spurs activating another player.
So which story is true?
Cheers.
I don’t think you necessarily have to activate a player to enforce the 5-day injury rule, you just have to put a guy on the injured list. The roster slot would be open to put someone there, though. There is (I believe) a limit of 3 players on the Injured List, so if you don’t already have 3 players on the list you don’t have to activate one to make room for another player. The Spurs had 2, so they might opt to use that free slot to sign a new player to a short-term contract. And who knows? Maybe those other two players really are actually injured.
That quote only would have been true if the Spurs did not put Duncan on the IL. I’m guessing that was written before Duncan was officially inactivated (and made the assumption that a player would be activated in doing so), or was just plain wrong.
D
I decided to check the actual NBA rules about this, and my assumption above is incorrect (I should have checked there first). The specific rule is:
So, yes, the player needs to be replaced in order to be out five games. AP was right, and ESPN made wrong assumption.
D
Ah, thanks Dahnlor, for the help. My first reaction to this was similar to yours, but I just didn’t have the patience to look it up in the rulebook (or site). But I guess even if Duncan had to sit for five games, I wouldn’t be too bothered by it looking at how the Spurs played today 
Thanks again, I think many of us fans learned something new today.