With the All-Star break over and the NBA season beginning to really heat up, now feels like the perfect time to look into the state of awards season.
If you’ve looked anywhere online, you’ve certainly seen the discourse around NBA awards this season, especially MVP.
In the 2023-24 season, the NBA created the 65-game eligibility rule. The rule states that to be considered for end-of-season honors (Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, All-NBA, etc), players need to play in 65 out of the 82 games in the regular season and play at least 20 minutes in 63 of them.
The rule exists in an attempt to prevent teams from resting and load managing their star players, only allowing players to miss 17 games each season.
However, this season, with only around 20 games left, there are multiple star players who either already have or are at risk of losing their eligibility for these awards.
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Notable players ineligible as of March 7:
Giannis Antetokounmpo: 27.6 points, 9.9 rebounds and 5.4 assists.
LeBron James: 21.4 points, 5.6 rebounds and 7.0 assists.
Stephen Curry: 27.2 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists.
Joel Embiid: 26.6 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists.
Jimmy Butler: 20.0 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.9 assists.
MVP Ladder: (As of March 6)
Every week, the NBA releases an updated MVP Ladder, which highlights 10 of the league’s top players at this point in the season. At first glance, the list looks normal, filled with the typical NBA superstars you are accustomed to seeing dominate games on TV. A closer look reveals something else, however. There is a likely chance that when the season is over, half of that list will be ineligible for the award due to missing too many games, including four of the top five.
The current list:
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: Can only miss five more games.
- Nikola Jokic: Can only miss one more game.
- Cade Cunningham: Should be safe, would have to miss 11 of the remaining 21 games.
- Victor Wembanyama: Can only miss three more games.
- Jaylen Brown: Should be safe, would have to miss 10 of the remaining 19 games.
Other players who are on the verge of missing out on eligibility are Luka Doncic, Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Edwards and Devin Booker, just to name a few.
If all of these players manage to stay fully healthy the rest of the season, great, the MVP race continues as normal, and we have a really solid sequel to last year’s MVP race with Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic.
However, if Jokic re-aggravates his knee, Gilgeous-Alexander’s abdominal injury returns or Wembanyama gets hurt again, the MVP race and All-NBA teams will look particularly weak in comparison to previous years.
Cunningham has been excellent this season. He is the best player on the Detroit Pistons, the team with the best record in the league, but is he really the most valuable player this season?
In 16 games without Jokic this season, the Denver Nuggets are a shell of the team they are with on the court. In games with Jokic on the court, their net rating is 6.4, good enough for fifth in the league. Without Jokic, the Nuggets have a net rating of -1.6, which puts them 20th.
If all of these players get hurt just one more time this season, the All-NBA first team could feature Cunningham, Jaylen Brown, Jalen Brunson, Donovan Mitchell and Kevin Durant. This is just an estimate of what could end up happening, but there is little argument to be made that these five players, while elite, are the five best players in the league this season.
While the 65-game rule may have looked like a partial solution to a genuine issue in load management, just three years later, this rule looks to be a bit of an overreaction. Players have missed this game mark in the past and still earned end-of-season honors.
James, for example, has appeared on an All-NBA team on four occasions where he missed more than 17 games. In 2018-19, he earned the honor while only playing in 55 games.
Because of this rule, there is a very real chance that somewhat undeserving players capture this year’s MVP award and postseason honors.
