Over the past several years, the NBA has been trying to solve a problem that has affected fans all over the world: load management.
NBA stars of late often would sit our back-to-back games or on long road stretches of games. While I support the occasional day off, the fact is that more and more players are using these load management games at a much higher rate. This has become a big discouragement for fans, as many have traveled great distances or spent large sums of money just to get to the game to see their favorite players sitting in street clothes.
However, at the start of the 2023-24 season, the NBA added a new rule to combat load management. If a player is to win one of the end-of-season awards or be named to an All-NBA team, the player must play a minimum of 65 games with at least 20 minutes played in each game for it to count. With the NBA season being 82 games long, this means a player must play at just under 70 percent of the season.
Seems logical right? You have to play most of the season to be eligible to win awards. However, some NBA players dislike this new rule. Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton has been one of the more vocal players about this change.
For some players, millions of dollars are on the line. In Haliburton’s contract, if he makes an All-NBA team, he is awarded $40 million. After missing 13 games so far this year due to a hamstring injury, this bonus is now in jeopardy. And this is just one of the many contract incentives at stake with this new rule.
Unlike Haliburton, I am a big fan of this rule. Imagine taking a quarter or more days off from your job and then going to your boss to ask for a raise.
Stats play a big part in choosing who receives awards, especially the Most Valuable Player award. Points per game is the stat that stands out the most when picking a winner. With the NBA being so unpredictable, a player can hit a hot streak or be in a slump at any given game. This can raise or lower a player’s averages which could impact who could win the award. Let’s look at last year’s MVP, Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid for example.
Embiid averaged 33.1 points, 10.2 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game in his MVP campaign last season. He played just 66 games, which is the second-fewest games played from an MVP in league history. In those 16 games missed, a string of bad nights could have brought down his averages. This would have given more leverage to the runner-up Nikola Jokic who averaged 24.5 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 9.8 assists per game over 69 games and a better team record with the Denver Nuggets at the end of the season.
When you look at past MVPS, the winner has played well above this year’s 65 game requirement.
Michael Jordan won five MVPs in his 13-year career and in four of those five he played in all 82 games. Kareem Adbul-Jabbar, who has the record for most MVPS at six, played all 82 games in four of his six MVP campaigns and only missed a combined three games in two of those seasons. Kobe Bryant was the last player to be named MVP and play all 82 games when he won in 2008. It has been 16 years without an MVP playing the whole season, but the closest to repeating this was Russell Westbrook when he won in 2016 when he missed only a single game.
With just over a month left in the season, there is still plenty of time left for players to miss games. Many notable names who have won awards or been named All-NBA in recent years could be left off if they continue to miss games. Some of these players include Embiid, Kyrie Irving, Devin Booker, Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler and Jamaal Muray who have each missed more than 10 games so far this season.
If this rule had been placed in previous years, some NBA awards would have had a much different outcome. Here are a few examples on how the NBA would have changed if this rule had been in place in the past.
Rudy Gobert won Defensive Player of the Year in 2018 playing 56 games. Bill Walton won the 1978 MVP playing in just 54 games while runner-up George Gavin (who never won an MVP in his career) played all 82 games that season. Lastly, in 2022 Ja Morant won the Most Improved Player playing 57 games while runner-up Dejonte Murray played in 68 games.
I think this rule is a big step in solving the load management problem. Sixteen games is a nice balance to give the athletes a grace period to miss a handful of games in case they have a minor injury that could place them out a small number of games.
