INDIANAPOLIS — No matter how many All-Stars the NBA filed into a packed room Saturday to talk over one another in simultaneous news conferences, a silence reverberated loudest. Loud enough to be heard in at least a few of the questions.
The most significant absence in Indianapolis this weekend is the one that’s shaking up the 2023-24 MVP race.
Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid was the presumptive favorite until early February when he underwent surgery to repair his lateral meniscus. The left knee injury has rendered him ineligible to repeat as league MVP under new NBA policy, which requires players to appear in a minimum of 65 games to be considered for end-of-year awards such as MVP and All-NBA.
The procedure will sideline Embiid long enough that he almost definitively wouldn’t have won MVP even without the new rule. However, his situation has still sparked debate in league circles about whether or not the 65-game minimum should have been instituted in the first place. Why? Because there was wide speculation Embiid felt pressured to play through a pre-existing knee injury in order to maintain awards eligibility, especially after getting ridiculed for missing his fourth consecutive road game against the Nuggets — and MVP adversary Nikola Jokic — in late January.
Two games later, Embiid was back in the lineup when Golden State’s Jonathan Kuminga fell on his leg and caused the injury that required surgery.
Jokic is perversely positioned to benefit from Embiid’s unfortunate situation. The Nuggets center is the new betting favorite to win his third MVP in the last four years. But he takes no joy in that. He was asked about the 65-game rule Saturday during his media session at All-Star weekend.
“Definitely forcing players to play, even when they’re injured or whatever,” Jokic said. “But we saw what happened with Joel. … I don’t know. I just don’t like it, how it forces players to play even if they’re injured, if they want to achieve something.”
Arguments against the rule largely depend on the arbitrary nature of the league’s chosen number. No data-driven evidence was provided to explain why 65 makes more sense as a games-played minimum than, say, 67 — one more than the number of games Embiid played last year when he won MVP. In 2022-23, Jokic finished second in voting with 69 games played. Giannis Antetokounmpo was third with 63.
With the door wide open now, Jokic’s biggest challenger for the 2023-24 crown is his All-Star teammate, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
The Thunder guard, who ranks second in the league in scoring (31.1 points) and first in steals (2.2), wasn’t as quick to condemn the rule as Jokic was.
“I’m not too sure. I think no matter what, there’s like a fine line,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Like, when it comes down to it, there’s always a fine line in games played and availability. And I think the league has the right intention in trying to make that line a little bit bolder and easier to make a decision. Now, I try to be as available as I can every night, not only for that but just for the love of the game. But as far as how the rule goes, I don’t really have an opinion. I’m gonna try to be available for my team to win basketball games every night, and if I can’t be available, then I just can’t, and it is what it is.”
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The last remark in Gilgeous-Alexander’s answer operates as a rebuttal to Jokic’s point: Players can and should be responsible for their own decision-making when their health is involved, regardless of what a rule incentivizes.
Beyond the MVP layer of the debate, Indiana All-Star Tyrese Haliburton has said recently that he felt rushed to return from an injury this season because his eligibility to sign a supermax contract depends on him making an All-NBA team. Boston’s Jaylen Brown, who signed a supermax last offseason after making his first All-NBA team, suggested lowering the minimum to around 58 games.
“Honestly, I do believe that if you win any type of award, I think you should have to play a significant amount of the season,” Brown said Saturday. “… But maybe 65 games might be a little too severe, you know?”
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