This would equate to what, an end of the year pizza party for you?

Imagine having a union.

You must play in the NFL

His union were the ones who got him into this situation in the first place

The same union that agreed to the dumb rule in the first place

No exceptions should be made.

There probably wasn’t a need to arbitrare if both the NBA and PA agreed.

Only ANTs challenge went to an independent arbitrator you dork, why would Luka thank someone that had no part in the decision?

MJ first went for the cash

According to Marcus, during a trip to Bahamas, his father took his 14-year-old sister, Jasmine, on a jet ski ride, but for whatever reason, the jet ski capsized and threw them into the ocean. The incident left MJ, Jasmine, and what Marcus described as a ‘big wad of cash in a rubber band’ literally floating on the open waters. Per Marcus:

“My dad’s in the water, my sister’s floating a couple of feet away from him, and you see this wad of cash floating in the water. Who do you think my dad went for first? My dad literally went for the 40 grand first. My dad said, ‘She got on a life vest, but I gotta go grab this cash.’”

Marcus also told Larsa that his dad doesn’t know how to swim, but even without a life vest at that time, MJ was still determined to save his hard-earned money, even doing it first over ensuring Jasmine’s safety.

“Hold my Beer”-Malone

he may have meant that literally.

remember that weird celebration where he was grabbing a little boys ass? What ever happened to that story?

Fuck you too 

I find myself saying this about most comments sections on this website nowadays. Bunch of miserable cunts.

he only needed 1 more game exempted not “15” he only applied for the 2 missed from his daughter’s birth

What is exactly that you dont understand? He missed many games but two of those were for reasons that could legitimately be appealed and that’s what his agent did. Did you expect his agent to go on appealing him sitting on a random b2b?

You’re basically asking why does luka’s exception hinges on the games that have the most chance of having a sucessfull appeal

He missed two games for it and was back playing 2 days after her birth. The suspension wasnt appealable and then just some injuries along the way added up.

Can anyone who’s more closely followed the lakers and Luka this year tell me (and I likely know the answer is for a positive spin and PR) why Luka’s exception is so heavily hinged on him missing time for his child’s birth?

Aside from compassionate reasons, possible NBA doesn’t want to open up the can of worms that is paternity leave. PR disaster and potential legal quagmire. Don’t think it was negotiated away in the CBA

FMLA would grant them 12 weeks unpaid if they wanted it. Then you have the Raptors which would have to give players 5-8 weeks (EDIT: 35 according to a resident Canuck, which highlights why the NBA would absolutely need to avoid this). There’d also possibly be the issue of non playing staff being eligible whereas playing staff would not be.

It’s good this happened, otherwise who knows how many games Ant would miss

I’m not as tuned is as who you are looking for, but there were a lot of rumors of him and his Fiance splitting and such. I believe she flew back to Europe because of this, and that is where the baby was born instead of in LA/Dallas. If the baby were born in the states, Luka may not have had to miss 2 games to be there for the birth. That is what I assume is the crux of his argument. 

Doesn’t matter. He only needed one game

The CBA says they factor in the totality of the season but I guess they threw that out the window

He served one suspension and the rest were all legitimate injuries. Prior to the April injury, his biggest injury in the season was in January/February which also was his hamstring. Earlier in the season he had a hand injury and I think there was a minor calf one as well.

Unless I’ve forgotten, I don’t remember any period of the season where he has taken a game off for resting.

Do you have a brain?

He is at 64 games. He missed 2 due to the birth of his child. Make those 2 games an exception and he reaches the threshold. Pretty straightforward.

He missed 2 for his daughter, 1 for suspension, and 13 for injury or injury management

He ended up with 64 games played, so if he did not miss 2 games for the birth of his daughter it would be at 66, which is why they are focused on those two because those are the two misses that would be subject to the exception; those are the only exceptional circumstances misses.

He would have been fine but he got himself suspended on techs so he needed this exception to get an extra game.

The answer is he’s one of the best and most famous players in the league. That’s literally it. They would have bent the rules however they needed to lol

why? precedent is set if you have a kid its an extraordinary circumstance. That’s pretty clear.

I mean they gave Cade an exemption as well for a collapsed lung. I dont see how Luka getting the exemption ends up creating a controversial situation.

You can see a situation in the future where a player misses two games due to a child’s birth and is denied the exception? Really?

Luka’s appeal going through is way less crazy than Cade’s. Cade got injured, that’s part of basketball.

I can’t see anybody in Luka’s case not getting the exemption, it’s incredibly cut and dry I feel. The exemption that might cause future controversy is Cade’s, which is completely unrelated to any of this.

from the league’s perspective, the rule isn’t meant to reward players playing a lot of minutes or racking up tons of counting stats. the only metric they were striving for is # of fans who get to see superstar players play. that’s why it’s games played and not minutes or anything else

They already did, the players agreed to the new rules and don’t want to play less games because it means they get paid less.

It’s because the rule is not based on player effort (it basically doesn’t care about the players), but on the product.

To reuse the math Wemby did, he said something like how do you compare 35min x 50 games to 25min x 65. The first is more total minutes by quite a lot, but the league would likely prefer the second output (better ticket sales, ad revenue, prediction market engagement and I don’t know what else :D).

The whole point of the rule is to get players to play in more games. Edwards only played in 61 while Cade and Luka both hit 64.

Wemby and Jokic both would have sat way more games.

Did Ant’s team file an appeal?

The 65 game rule is not because we cannot trust voters to vote with nuance and context. the rule is to prevent stars from sitting out games they can play. Fans pay to watch their favorite players play so they need to be incentivized to play unless they absolutely can’t. Awards give them access to higher salary. It’s effectively a bonus for exceeding a minimum hours logged.

The rule is there to get rid of load management from healthy players. There’s no chance guys like Kawhi and Wemby wouldn’t have load managed 5-10 games this year if it wasn’t for this rule.

I agree. If they’re already having to pick apart technicalities, exceptions, and special cases then maybe a hard cutoff was always dumb. Once upon a time we held some level of trust in voters to be able to take into account the context that Luka missed two games due to the birth of his child or that Cade still has an All NBA, MVP level season at 64 games vs 65.

The rule is about incentivizing the players to play in more overall games because the league recognizes fans are upset with guys that sit out.

The league prefers 24 minutes for three games instead of 36 minutes for two and 0 for one.

Media has too much influence over the NBA.

In fact fans have too much influence too. It’s ridiculous that fans can help influence ASG appearances which affects the contracts players can get.

The NBA needs to simplify max contracts instead of having supermax and variations depending on the individual accolades players get. All it does is encourage selfish plays in the long run.

Because not everything is black and white. Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances. It’s not like Luka took 3 months paternity leave. Missing 2 games for the birth of his child seems like a reasonable exception.

How is it toxic to want the NBA to stick with their rule?

Salaried employees get that benefit, yeah.

No point in this rule if they make exceptions for whatever random reason.

Too busy playing games 😔🎮

The one time redditors are actually pro child

so why did Cade get an exception too?

Cade got approved too though?

He didn’t need an exemption for every game he missed

He appealed for 2 games he needed 1 game to qualify.

you’re not supposed to play every game to be eligible?

You can’t pick and choose. If he didn’t miss the games for the birth of his child than the suspension wouldn’t have mattered, he would have met the threshold. That is what the exemption is for

Yup but the Luka fanboys will convince you it’s not their star boy fault that he got a suspension.

It sounds exactly how he talks to me.

Cade got an exception too…

cade got an exception and he plays in Detroit lmao

You’re telling me they only cared about the game limit because they didn’t reach it 🤯🤯🤯

Why tf would Luka apply for the exception before genuinely needing it. I stg y’all don’t read your comments before you post. 

So Luka should have applied when he thought he’d make it? Huh?

What are you even mad about?

Are you mentally deficient?

If Luke really cared, he would’ve applied for the exception right when he needed to be away, not wait until the hamstring injury happened.

You actually have to wait until the end of the season though.

An Extraordinary Circumstances Challenge must be brought by a player in respect of a Season no earlier than 12:00 p.m. eastern time on the last day of the Regular Season and no later than 11:59 p.m. eastern time on the day following the last day of the Regular Season.

They can only apply for the exception at 62 games played, so Luka and Cade couldn’t do it earlier.

Acting like Ant ever going to meet the kids of his baby mamas, or letting those kids live

Which game?

Please tell me when lol

The suspension couldnt be appealed. This could and is a built in rule. This take is dumb and overused.

Math must be hard for you, because he missed two games for the birth of his daughter.

The suspension is irrelevant to the rule

so if he had missed 1 more day because of his daughters and never got suspended it would be okay?

You talking about a rule made to enforce players to players more games and you whole arguement of “he would not need the exemption if he did not get suspended” crumbles if luka played one less game (and he’d still get the exemption since the missed TWO games for the birth of his daughter).

If that doesn’t make you understand how flawed your logic is than nothing will