Minutes instead of games makes a lot of sense if you want a limit to still be in place

I would do this and also remove any qualifier for 3rd Team All-NBA.

2000 minutes seems about right.
⁶⁵⁄₈₂ is ~80%

All NBA 1st Team minutes is about 2500 in the past 10 years [1]
²⁰⁰⁰⁄₂₅₀₀ is 80%

So yes, making either requirement is a good compromise.

[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-JFFYzBZqxzJ4BQqAzY7SfG6O29yI25TFEHy8T5_iOc/edit?gid=275574625#gid=275574625

Maxey could still hit the 65 games. He’s at 61 and last I saw he could return early April. Even if he doesn’t play back to backs if he returns April 4 at home he could get to 65

I agree with the minutes thing if they’re going to continue with the dumb 65 game rule

Minutes is such an obvious choice, similarly to pitchers needing a minimum number of innings or hitters needing a minimum number of ABs.

Minutes may be a better one. Want to rest the next game? Play until fourth even if we have the lead.

The point of the rule was to stop players from missing games when they were healthy so that fans wouldn’t miss out on seeing stars.

Changing it to minutes defeats the whole purpose

Ok Bill Simmons, ok!

Maxey is third in the league in total minutes played this season and will be ineligible.

Maxey currently is 10th in minutes played and will continue falling pretty quickly given that he’s not playing. There’s a good chance he’s 13th after the next game Derrick White, Brandon Ingram, and Jalen Brunson play.

He’ll win four, then they’ll start giving it to other people because he took a step back (he won’t have, it’s just fatigue), then a guard in a big media market will win and we’ll all collectively ask what the hell is going on, Wemby’s still clearly the best defender in basketball, then it’ll be time for the next insane archetype-breaking player to start competing for awards.

i mean if he plays any reasonable amount of games and is as good of a defender as usual, I wouldn’t even be mad

Then so be it if he’s that good for so long.

Everyone loved the rule bc it would it affect guys like Kawhi & Embiid. Then it started affected Jokic and other players they like and they want it gone lmao

The flack Embiid got throughout his career for so many different issues yet all the pushback disappeared when it occurred to their favorite players. Injuries robbed us of a generational talent.

I really don’t want it to happen for basketball and for Jokic. But I do want Jokic to miss I think 2 games to be technically disqualified just for the drama and the backsies on this sub.

The worst part is seeing people call for the rule to be abolished when jokic got injured when those exact same people have tweets up from 3 years ago praising the rule because they thought it would only affect embiid

Exactly, this sub was creaming itself to shit on Embiid with this rule.

Quiet now. This sub wont stand for you to call out their hypocrisy

Love how everyone change there mind when it started to effect guys like jokic and Wemby

It was always a dumb rule

This isn’t about MVP though, Cade was never going to win that.

It’s about All-NBA.

Only 1 MVP has ever played less than 65 games.

Sounds like the voters were already factoring in missed games then and it’s a pointless rule.

They did fix it. But then they implemented the pointless In Season Tournament and it fucked it up again.

Maybe just have the MVP as at least 65 games and the other awards 60. MVP should be held to the highest standard

Only 1 MVP has ever played less than 65 games.

Then why was this rule implemented in the first place? Besides, we are seeing more injuries than ever before. Gotta account for that.

CJ isn’t even the president anymore lol. It’s Freddy V

I don’t know why people blaming him. CJ is the players rep. The players voted for it. It’s not his fault the players didn’t give a fuck about the CBA once weed was cleared.

this has me dying

Only 1 player has ever won the MVP with less than 65 games. Voters were already clearly factoring games played in. Why do we even need this middle ground?

If SGA or Jokic or anyone is somehow able to generate enough value to win the MVP in 62 games, it’s silly for there to be some arbitrary number of games missed that disqualifies them.

Regardless, none of this has anything to do with the sanctity of these awards. It’s all just a thinly veiled attempt by the NBA to keep stars from resting games without fixing their own scheduling issues that cause them to rest. So any compromise here feels silly. It should be a rule for all awards, or none.

ROTY doesn’t have it as is, but I think even adding in 1st and 2nd team All-NBA would be acceptable too

I think this is gonna be where everyone lands on this issue.

It still doesn’t make sense for MVP. There is no difference.

SGA plays 65 games and wins MVP.

He plays 64 and gets 0 votes cause you aren’t allowed to vote for him. How does that make sense. The rule makes no sense when to the voting process. You are already evaluating 65 games, why isn’t a voter allowed to do that for 64 games.

Just get rid of it and revert back how it was before.

Yeah, I see this (although ROY feels a bit unnecessary)

Especially since real money is tied up in all-NBA selections. So you might have a guy who deserves the pay bump not get it because he had a high-ankle sprain in January. Meanwhile, you might get a guy who is like the 25th best player in the league get it because he squeaked onto 3rd team when 10 guys were ineligible.

They notably implemented it after two seasons where Embiid played more than 65 games and was frequently dismissed as an mvp candidate for missing too many games. If anything, the concrete limit would have helped him in those seasons by giving a firm defence against the missed games argument

Yeah that’s exactly why it’s happening.

It’s finally affecting people and isn’t convenient for the narrative anymore so now they want to get rid of it

Yup, all the Jokic fans were actively lobbying for it against Embiid. Now they look like clown sore losers all around.

Doesn’t really affect how much they play, just makes it so worse players get awards

It’s a union of the 0.1%.

Fr man they want all the benefits but without the accountability, I get injuries but that js mean someone else who’s also working hard is gonna win the award.

You got 17 games to sit out, and you still want more???

Accountability for what exactly, it’s not like they can control getting injured.

Is there any other sport where so many players seem like they don’t want to play the sport they’re paid to play?

NOT for these millionaires who shoot a damn ball in a hoop

Player outcry is more about All-NBA and getting bonuses and less about MVP

Fan outcry really depends on what star gets injured, if SGA goes down below the limit then it will cause there to be more support for the rule

Yep the spurs were legit resting their guys and putting “rest” as the reason why. It’s a slap to the face of the fans who paid money to watch them play and the reason why the make so much money.

If they actually want to fix load management they need to make the regular season worth more than getting 1 extra home playoff game

Exactly. It’s a fully guaranteed contract, you want to not be required to play a minimum amount of games just so you could get a bigger bonus?!?

No one is saying that MVPs should go to players missing that many games. That’s literally only happened once in NBA history, and that was nearly 50 years ago.

But to suggest that 61 games of Cade Cunningham or whoever it is isn’t an all-NBA worthy player is flat out ridiculous.

This isn’t about MVP, it’s about All-NBA. 

Having the cutoff be 81% without nuance is silly though. Why can’t voters take into account the number of games played and determine a player’s value from that?

Setting the bar at an “arbitrary” 80% of the season is totally reasonable. I’m not sure how you’re impactful enough to win season honors if you miss one out of every five games.

It’s good for the fans who actually pay to attend the games

Look Bill Walton was a huge exception. 58 games is so low the next lowest in an 82 game season is 66 with Embiid then Iverson at 71.