If Luka is injured for the season he will NOT be eligible for any postseason awards: an explanation of the rules and technicalities
Luka Doncic had to leave the game early vs the Thunder due to an hamstring injury. He was dealing with it throughout the game and it seemed to pop early into the 3rd quarter.
Obviously the hope is that it was all a scare and that he can come back before the regular season ends. But the possibility of him having played his last regular season game is very real, and that opens questions regarding his eligibility for postseason awards - both MVP voting and the All-NBA teams. I’ve seen differing versions circulating and so I wanted to clarify things.
As per CBS Sports, quoting the NBA rulebook, players have to play a minimum of 65 games to be eligible, with a minimum of 20 minutes played in each game. However, players have a 2 game buffer where they can play a minimum of 15 minutes, and in case of a season-ending injury that limit decreases to 62 games, provided they had played 85% of possible games until the point of injury.
At a first glance, Luka seems to meet this if his injury is assumed to be season ending. He is currently at 64 games played, 62 of which with over 20 minutes played and the remaining 2 with over 15 minutes played. However, the issue lies with the 85% minimum.
Luka has played, to the point of injury, 64 games of a possible 77 - games played by the Lakers as a team so far. As such, he only played ~83% of all games played by his team. This falls under the 85% minimum, meaning the injury exception will not apply to him. For that reason, his 64 games played fall just short of the minimum 65 and thus he will be ineligible for all awards if he doesn’t return to play an extra game.
The “season-ending” part of it is also questionable even if he doesn’t play any more regular season games. From what I gathered in other sources, the injury has to be deemed to extend beyond the postseason. I am not completely sure on that, but in this case it doesn’t even matter. Even if it extends beyond that deadline, Luka will miss the injury exception criteria anyway.
Bottom line is that unless Luka plays at least one of the Lakers’ last 5 regular season games, he is ineligible for any postseason awards. I never agreed with the 65 game minimum personally, and cases like this strengthen my perception of the rule, but I understand opinions might vary on that front.