I’ve seen other people say it, but I think it’s hard to say it too much without actual evidence. He is one of the few independent guys who actually does a good job of collecting evidence from guys in the 60s-90s as he did in this video.

Bill Simmons of all people has pointed this out, saying back in the 1980s guys stood around on defense for most of the game.

Rusty Buckets as well

Other than the scores of posters here constantly saying it?

Looks like the default take to me.

It’s wild to me that it’s not mentioned more in that the game has evolved and that talking heads can’t find a way to appreciate it.

Sure, you had “hard collisions” back in the day, but those aren’t the same as Achilles or ACL/MCL injuries.

This has been a Matthew Sponhour crusade for a while as well

People wrongly counter that with clips of Bill Lambier clotheslining players. As if it was a physical brawl all game.

I’ve been saying this on this sub for the entire season, but any attempt to support the idea that 60 games limit could be more reasonable you get rapidly downvoted foir “slippery slope” fallacy “next you’ll be crying to make it 55 games once your favorite player plays 59”

Which is especially frustrating because on the face of it, the data he’s gathering is not so difficult to gather.

This shouldn’t have been the first time that I’ve seen a graph comparing different eras of steps per minute and hard stops. Anyone could have gathered this and made this case, but no one does. He’s the only one who actually digs this deep.

It really puts a spotlight on how pathetic most analysis is.

Their podcast is one of my go to weekly listens. Absolutely love their content and they provide a nice grounded view away from all the hot take theatrics

Did Benny pay you to say this 😂😂😂

Did they stop paywalling their videos yet? I stopped watching once they only released snippets and you had to be a member to see the full one.

I just enjoy when he backs up his takes and tries to add evidence to his points. I went into this video disagreeing with the conclusion and still do to some extent, but I acknowledge he has a pretty good point because he backs it up. 

MJ was playing 1 on 1 with 8 fans on the court 

Without wanting to sound too obtuse. The easiest solution to the entire thing is to stop placing so much emphasis and prestige on these things, especially including jt in contract clauses.

I think this all may have swayed me a bit. Being disqualified because youve actually been injured whould not be the rule. The rule was to keep stars from load management. I think this is the Lebron rule because he’s been famously doing it for a few years now, deservedly so, but when you’re on the road at the Bullets and someone paid $1200 becas7ue it was Lebron and the Lakers, you’re going to have some pissed off ticket buyers. I believe the onus should be on the NBA and the owners to actually refund partial tickets when this happens. That won’t happen. WHat happens when a player HAS to play their 65th game and they get hurt?

I think the voters might take it into their hands by knocking some players from 2nd to 3rd team, etc because of this.

They can’t get rid of the rule really but it has to change.

Is fine for first team but not the entire category

It would’ve lead to so many memes if we had crazy MVP and all-NBA results. The league was so close to having Jaylen Brown MVP and Mikal Bridges and Brandon Ingram All-NBA lol. Despite the funny memes, it also would’ve been a huge embarrassment and a PR disaster that would be remembered for decades.

The league knew they dodged a bullet when SGA, Wemby, and Jokic managed to make it past 65 GP. The rule is absolutely being changed or abolished this summer so that a near-miss doesn’t become an all-out crisis.

IMO I think a fair policy to stop load management would be to exclude missed games streaks of longer than 3 games from the rule, so any games outside of big injuries you need to play 80% of them (⁶⁵⁄₈₂ = 79.2%).

You can even raise the threshold to 85% and put a games played floor of 52 for the season (not that voters already exclude such players since very few awards have been to those who played under 60 games.)

If the rule is in place future players will be built to handle it. Some eggs will get cracked along the way, but load management was worse.

The rule isn’t just in place for awards. The awards are a carrot. The rule is in place because stars were sitting out non nationally televised games at wild levels.

Lebron James games played since 2018-19

55,67,45(COVID),56,55,71,70

Steph curry games played in same time frame:

69,5,63,64,56,74,70

Care to guess when the rule kicked in?

I do think they could amend it for second and third team, but I like it for first team and the major awards.

They have very smart analysis of basketball but might have some of the most consistently absurd player rankings I’ve ever seen. They can always rationalize individual rankings well but are awful at consistently applying rational throughout lists.

They’ll ding players for analytics/efficiency to an absurd amount like putting Jordan Walsh over Cooper Flagg and Carson Wallace over Paolo Banchero, and in the same ranking have Sengun over Ant while barely considering the drawbacks of Sengun they spent the entire video criticizing others for.

If you watch the video, he addresses this. Basically, the 65 game rule has had a negligible impact on the actual number of games played by Top 40 scorers and only adds maybe a couple extra games played/year, and does not address the problem of, 90s players playing 90% of games on average and 2020 players playing 75% of games. On the other hand, it muddles the legacy of end-season awards (which always had time factored in as a criteria, as even Walton’s MVP with 55 games played was justified if you look at how great the Blazers were with him and how poor they were without), and more importantly, incentivizes player to play while injured which can lead to more serious injuries (think of how many blown Achilles we’ve seen in the playoffs in recent years).

Players want to play, and are told not to by doctors because there is legit concern for their well-being. To do this, you either need to change the rules to slow down play (ban the gather-step because of strain on the legs, ban push-offs so players don’t get pushed into each other, set rules back to the 90s to encourage slow iso post-up plays), or increase rest (no back to backs, reduced games in a season). Players play more if they’re healthier, so taking actual steps to address players health will result in more games played rather than giving them incentive to play while hurt.

What’s implicit in your suggestion is the parent thinks “I don’t care if Wemby blows an Achilles and a potential spurs dynasty collapses I better get what I paid for”. And the league didn’t run on one fan’s timeline. The fan experience has to improve though I agree.

Most players push to play through minor injuries, it’s not an entitlement issue. The game is harder on the body, and the owners are gouging real fans whenever they can. If fans and the BPA aim their energy to change some rules and have cheaper tickets, that’d do everyone well

I’m sure both the child and father would be perfectly happy if Wemby ends up seriously injured instead because the NBA schedule is garbage with back to backs, the game is far more demanding on their bodies, and they get punished for missing too many games despite that.

I know its sarcasm, but he actually shows the difference by citing how many hard cuts players make over various eras to make the point that modern eras are much more physically taxing on the body.

I don’t know, if anything the NBA probably lost more superstars due to career-altering injuries in the previous decades than in recent times and those were players that could have brought more parity in the game (but it was under Stern’s ruling and he loved dynasties as much as Silver seems to enjoy parity so it doesn’t necessarily contradict your theory).

Not sure about the shorter careers point though, I’m pretty sure guys like Kawhi or Embiid would have retired earlier had they played in previous decades. They have no business being this good with such broken bodies, or even a guy like PG never really turned atrociously bad after several injuries that should have been career-ending in other times. it gives even more regrets to see how guys like D-Rose or Grant Hill really lost most of their potential so brutally.

Parity financially sucks for the NBA. Having dynasties builds stars, which draws viewers, which makes money. If they could have their way, it would be the Lakers and Celtics in the finals every year

While we’re at it, be strict with calling travels. That would put some limitations on the movement in the game, without compromising the tactical play that defines modern sets.

Being strict on carrying would also help. Think of the plays where an offensive player steps back to fake a shot and carries in the process causing the defensive player to bite on the fake but then has to immediately change directions mid-motion to try to keep up.

That’s not how the average fan thinks probably.

Players also get a pay cut from less games so the union would be very unlikely to go for it. Would have to be bundled with some other way to make money. Easiest solution would be to extend the season a few weeks to give more recovery time, although that’s obviously not gonna fix everything.

actually the season needs to get lengthened, which would make the schedule more relaxed

Stars will still sit out.

Stop acting like most fans want the season shortened. We don’t. These players are getting played way more than stars used to be to compete for 82 games.

82 games works. No need to cater to players more than the league already does.

At least they’ve already made changes in the team schedules in recent years, like making sure they travel shorter distances between away games or facing the same team twice in 1-2 days. But yeah, the simplest solution would be to start the season in early october, having teams still playing 5 games in 7 days shouldn’t exist anymore.

Times change, I’d love to have a 62 games season, better rest leads to less injuries, so while we’d have less games to watch, they’d almost surely be better quality games.

But NBA teams spend fortunes to make sure their players are healthy and available in the games that matter. There’s a ton of science that goes into it. Do you think they don’t have any data when they rest players? Of course they do