Sure he is. Pop hasn't run anyone ragged since about '09, when he stopped doing so with Duncan in the playoffs. People will use the knee as the excuse, but we all know he'd do it anyway, because he's become so conditioned to manically/obsessively managing minutes.
This is part of the reason why this team has gradually become mentally weak over the years. Nobody ever pushes through anything, even something that's manageable and by all accounts can't get worse. Meanwhile, 456 year old Bryant continues to play basically unlimited minutes while dealing with 37 ailments and plodding/lumbering Gasol is back after 2 games off with an abdominal tear and playing his usual 35 minutes.
All the coddling sounds great in theory, but it hasn't payed off once. At some point, they need to stop pretending they're smarter than/above everyone else and do what every other team does.