NBA's 65-Game Minimum For Awards Considered 'Ceremonial Rule', Unlikely To Create Change

[RealGM Wiretap]

The NBA is requiring a 65-game minimum for postseason awards as part of their new collective bargaining agreement. 

"To me, this is a ceremonial rule," said Adrian Wojnarowski on his podcast. "This is a 'Look, we're trying to do something. We're trying to show you we're doing something to curb load management. To impact all these lost games we're having with star players.

"I don't know this is going to change much behavior. I'm rolling my eyes a little bit at that one... I don't see this impacting star players playing in any more or less games than they would have before."

The broader issue is that the majority of games missed is due to injury, not load management. Load management is also largely dictated by teams rather than players.

Via Adrian Wojnarowski/ESPN

[Medbrat]

Tbh it seems like nowadays most of the Nba rules are "ceremonial"...

[shrink]

I think this rule was to keep Brian Windhorst from a future heart attack if Embiid misses 31 games and others suggest that means he isn’t the MVP.

[The Hypnotoad]

Aren’t larger contract allowances in some cases dictated by making all nba lists? So I think it would affect a lot.

[shrink]

Aren’t larger contract allowances in some cases dictated by making all nba lists? So I think it would affect a lot.

Yes, sometimes player individual contracts have incentive clauses like they get an extra million if they make an All Star Game. And some are baked into the CBA, like a player becomes eligible for the Designated Veteran Extension (supermax) if they receive a couple All NBA awards.

Media members are part of the vote here, and those votes are public. For example, Embiid could see that Windhorst voted for him for MVP, but McMahon did not. The voting was made more subjective by each media member having their own idea how many games was sufficient to get their vote. By codifying a 65-game minimum, it helps ticketbuying fans see the stars who might have taken a night off, and it provides cover for the media, when McMahon wants a quote from Embiid, and he thinks McMahon cost him millions of dollars.

[kalel123]

Aren’t larger contract allowances in some cases dictated by making all nba lists? So I think it would affect a lot.

I thought All-NBA meant the difference between regular max and super max and most players care about that stuff more than you'd think. But yeah, agree that the rule is just for show. If they wanted to be serous, should've increased minimum to 70 and built more max tiers tied to winning these awards.

[dougthonus]

I think this is a good rule if you ignore the concept of load management.

I think it makes sense that a player hits a minimum threshold to be eligible for an award. In terms of total value provided to your team, if you miss 30 games, your value is no where near MVP. Even if they won every game you played, you'd only be responsible for help in 52 wins and some other team will have a bet player that helped in more wins than that.

Media vastly underrates availability as a criteria in the awards when calculating total value a player provides, so giving some minimum bar makes sense.

In the case of load management, will this do anything? No. But load management isn't a real problem anyway but a fictional, blown out of proportion problem. So who cares. If you ignore this as a response to load management and just think whether the rule makes sense on its own, it's a good rule.

[dantas]

It should also have a minimum number of wins.

60-60.

60% of games played and 60% of wins.

Westbrook wouldn't win his mvp, for example. You have to be available and also be a winner to win the awards.