This is the best rule the NBA has implemented in years! The NBA rule to stipulate all awards and postseason honors based upon if they played 65 games or not has been a TREMENDOUS success as players are actually playing basketball consistently again.
When players get too selfish and entitled, this is what is needed to keep them in line.
Despite this issue seemingly being redundant and supercilious on the surface, the NBA’s decision to implement the new 65-game rule for all awards and honors has been one of the best moves the league has made in years as it’s gotten the small cohort of entitled brats to finally play consistent basketball again. And, to be honest, I think every player who is complaining about this rule is showing their true colors.
When the NBA, Adam Silver, and the Joe Dumars, who the current Vice President and Head of Basketball Operations for the NBA, gets things right, I’m more than willing to compliment them for it. And this is one of those cases!
I’ve seen a lot of talk in the media (which is usually driven by the obnoxious and arrogant player podcasts; obviously not all of them are like this, but you know the ones I’m talking about) about how the NBA 65-game rule on all major awards, such as MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, and Sixth Man of the Year, and the postseason honors, such as All-NBA team, All-Defensive Teams, and All-Rookie teams, to ensure players DO THEIR JOBS AND PLAY BASKETBALL is “unfair” or “bullshit” as Draymond Green put it.
And I couldn’t disagree with him and all those players who think like him more.
The NBA was a league DYING because of how infrequent the superstar players, whether by their own volition or through their team’s conniving doctors, would sit out of huge, nationally televised games because “they just didn’t feel right”. And, no, I don’t mean the guys who are forced off the court with broken bones, torn muscles, ripped ligaments, or concussions, etc., but rather the guys who had “knee swelling” or “hip stiffness” or “bruising” or “calf soreness”.
In other words, they were sitting out just because they felt like it or their, respective, teams deemed that their health was too valuable to risk in regular season games. Now, that obvious not only damaged the image of the regular season as it placed little importance on the 82-game season, but it also gave the players the most arrogant, entitled, and selfish auras I’ve ever seen from a professional athlete.
I mean, as a fan, you would spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to take your family out for the night to watch your favorite basketball team face off against their archrivals…to then only see the, respective, stars of said teams be laughing, dancing, and parading their thousand-dollar outfits around on the bench as they all sat out. Does that sound like a great viewing experience? NO!
And that’s why the NBA was going to face serious television and gate ticket decline if they allowed these buffoons to continue sitting out games, disrespecting the interests and devotion of the fans, reaping the boons of rewards THEY DID NOT EARN, and desecrating the legacy of excellence and consistency the likes of Magic Johnson, Wilt Chamberlin, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Bill Russell, Bob Cousey, Hakeem Olajuwan, Jerry West, George Mikan, Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan, etc. earned with their dedication to the game and the league.
So, sure, the rule sucks for players who get injured and derail an MVP-caliber season, as it seems to be the case for Joel Embiid, yet that’s just the nature of sports. Are we really supposed to bend the rules for every single great player who gets injured?
Was the NBA supposed to just hand out MVPs and Larry O’Brien trophies to Bill Walton as injuries derailed his potential all-time great career (he’s still a HOFer, but not a Top-10 great center)?
Or what about Grant Hill and Derrick Rose? What about Yao Ming and how toe and foot injuries ruined his potential all-time great career? Penny Hardaway with the Magic and what could have been a dynasty out of Orlando? “Pistol” Pete Maravich?
Or what about the sad case of Maurice Stokes? The poor man, who was averaging 16.4 PPG, 17.RPG, and 5.3 APG at just 6’7”, landed on his head during an NBA game and suffered a terrible brain injury that would later put him in a coma, leave him paralyzed, end his NBA career after just three season (1955-1958), and then take his life in 1970.
Should every award just be given to him given the horrific nature of his tragedy due to participation in the league? Obviously, I wish this stuff never happened to any of these players as they all had amazing careers and life prospects ahead of them (and most still do), but injuries are just as ingrained to sports as the players themselves and cannot be nullified due to the unfairness of them.
Still, these are FAR worse cases than Joel Embiid not being able to win a second straight MVP due to him missing more than 17 games as we’re seeing now, yet we can’t go back in time and change their career trajectories just because they got injured.
That’s just the way life unfortunately works sometimes, and all good will that might have been granted was seized and crapped on by the likes of James Harden, Ben Simmons, Kawhi Leonard, Gregg Popovich (who is the pioneer of “load management”…which should take a heavy price away from his HOF candidacy IMO), practically everyone who played on the Spurs under Pop, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson, LeBron James, nearly every team medical staff around the NBA, and Joel Embiid himself through “load management”.
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