The NBA instituted a 65-game minimum rule for regular season awards in hopes of incentivizing participation of players in more games, but it is already leading to issues as potentially deserving players such as Joel Embiid and Tyrese Haliburton become ineligible.
“You’re always gonna have unintended consequences, that’s the first thing,” NBA executive vice president Joe Dumars told Yahoo Sports on Wednesday afternoon. “The second thing, you kind of knew that the first couple of guys that were going to get close to that mark, it will become an issue. So it probably was going to become a talking point at some point.
“It could’ve been a month from now. The number is what the number is. I’m not surprised, [though].”
While the 65-game rule has received criticism, Dumars reiterated that it was collective bargained as part of the NBA’s new CBA.
“Lest we forget, this was collectively bargained, players’ association, signed off by the owners, signed off by the competition committee,” Dumars said. “And we’ve updated the numbers. We throw a lot of numbers around, and at the end of the day, everybody landed on 65 and said, ‘You know what, that’s 20 percent, 20 percent of the season basically. That’s fair.’ Everybody in the ecosystem signed off on this.”
With the NBA tying awards to player contracts in some instances, some players will become eligible or ineligible for those strictly due to the existence of this rule. A player who would have otherwise been voted onto an All-NBA team will have their spot taken by a player with a lesser season.
