Are We Overreacting to the 65-Game Rule?

If Tyreese Haliburton misses 3 more games, it will have massive financial implications.

Daniel Waddleton

Jan 31st, 2023

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LAST NIGHT, THE whole NBA world watched Joel Embiid play a nationally televised game vs the Golden State Warriors. The man who is currently averaging more points per minute than Wilt Chamberlain the year he averaged 50, looked like a shell of himself. He was hobbling and limping up and down the court, was falling over trying to contest shots, and looked like it was painful to even just get back up.

For all the flack Joel Embiid has received over the past couple days for once again not playing the 76ers annual game in Denver vs Nikola Jokic, it’s clear the reigning MVP is injured. Realistically Embiid should take a couple of weeks off from playing and get his body right, as no matter what seed the 76ers end up at they will still have to get through Boston or Milwaukee regardless to reach their ultimate goal for the season.

The issue with this plan is Embiid is just 5 missed games away from no longer being eligible for any regular season awards, which includes the MVP, and an All-NBA selection. Now Embiid got his MVP last year and has been on an All-NBA team 5 of his 7 active seasons in the league, so I’m sure this is not the end of the world for the big man. For somebody who has never reached a conference finals, I’m sure he and the 76ers are more focused on his health in April as the priority.

While Embiid will remain the headline for this 65-game rule debate because it’s disqualifying the MVP frontrunner from the award, there are other less decorated players who are also in danger of this rule affecting their end of season eligibility for awards. The next most notable is Tyreese Haliburton, who through the first half of the season appears to be a lock to be on at least one of the three All-NBA teams. Haliburton, who is averaging 23 points and 12.5 assists as the engine of the league’s number 1 rated offense, voiced his frustration Tuesday about the new 65-Game eligibility rule.

Writer for the Athletic James Boyd wrote a piece and included Haliburton’s quotes that stated “I think it’s a stupid rule, like plenty of the guys in the league, but this is what the owners want, so as players, we gotta do our job and play in 65 games if we’re able to,” Haliburton said after practice Monday. “So, that’s what I gotta do, take care of my body to be able to play in those games, and I think you’re seeing other players in the league kind of face the same thing. As long as the owners are happy”.

More importantly than the pure recognition of being on an All-NBA team, Haliburton is frustrated because if he misses 3 more games this season he losses out on $40 million dollars that would’ve been added onto his rookie extension had he made an All-NBA team. This extra money would come from a new rule that’s apart of the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, which states that a fifth-year player coming off his rookie contract can be paid up to 30% of his team’s salary cap instead of 25% if he meets the “Higher Max Criteria” during the last year of his rookie deal.

It’s likely these aren’t going to be the only two guys at the end of the year who will be affected by this rule, and it has led to a leaguewide debate by the media and fans in recent days of if this rule is good or bad for the league.

My opinion? While I feel for guys like Embiid and Haliburton, I think the rule is good for the league. The NBA’s reason for implementing this rule clearly came from pressure to improve the product in the regular season with the TV rights set to be negotiated after 2024. It’s the same reason the NBA added the in-season tournament and “rivals’ week” to the regular season this year. The NBA has had a load management issue for some time now that has affected the product in the regular season. So, they felt the best way to combat the issue is to incentive playing in the strongest way they could. Creating this 65-Game eligibility rule.

Now for me I obviously don’t care what the new TV rights deal comes in at considering I am not going to be seeing any share of that money; however I like the rule for a different reason. It rewards the guys that are going out there every night and competing for their team, which clearly not every player is doing at the same level. The end of season awards should recognize the guys who are playing at a high-level while being accountable to their teams and playing through the peaks and valleys of a regular season.

As the old saying goes, the best ability is availability.

As far as MVP goes, I’m honestly not even sure what to think about the outrage over Embiid’s potential eligibility for the award, as it has historically always gone to guys that have been accountable all season. Since 2000, the player to play the least number of games in a full season and win the award was actually Embiid last year, who would’ve just made the cut on this rule playing 66 games.

LeBron played 62 in 2011-12, and Giannis 63 in 2019-20, but those seasons were the lockout and covid year. LeBron played 95% of totals games that year, and Giannis played 85% of total games that year. The 65-game minimum requires you to play 79% of your games in a given season, which seems like a perfectly fair baseline if you are going to be the leagues “Most Valuable Player”.

Ironically, Embiid was also a part of a games played debate mattering for an award during this rookie year as well. Some people were outraged that Malcom Brogdon was going to win rookie of the year over Joel Embiid because he was "clearly having the better season".

Sure, by raw numbers and impact per game Embiid was the better player. However, one guy played 75 games and one guy played 31 games.

Thankfully, enough voters had enough sense to give it to the guy who played more than 37% of his games, but the award almost went to a guy that wouldn’t have even been eligible for the scoring title (58 games).

THE DISCUSSION AROUND All-NBA and the game rule I will admit is a little bit different. The 65-game mark can certainly be a little harsher when we are trying to decide the 15 best players of a given season, as guys like Luka and Giannis would have actually been omitted from last years teams. However, had this been a rule I'm sure both guys would've not taken the couple extra rest games and comfortably made the cut. So to this I still say I have no issue with the rule.

Like I said earlier, the best ability is availability, and no matter how good you’ve been in a season if you only play 56 games it’s hard to justify you having more of an impact than a guy with maybe slightly worse stats but played in 20 more games for their team.

Now you can say, well it’s part of the voter’s job to take into consideration games played. Fair, but when Jalen Rose is voting Kyrie Irving onto 3rd Team All-NBA in 2022 after he played only 29 games that season, its safe to say the availability of players can be easily overlooked by these voters at times.

It’s also unquestionably easier to put up massive numbers when you’re not playing all the time. People raved over Kyrie’s regular season brilliance during those 29 games that season, yet it’s surely a lot easier to be sharp and at the top of your game when you’re only playing once a week as compared to the guys playing 5 games in 7 nights.

For example, in this regular season I look at a game like Jayson Tatum vs the Mavericks about 2 weeks ago. Coming off not an awesome shooting night in a physical win at Houston the night before, the Celtics then make the short trip to Dallas for a game the next day. In that game also not having the greatest outside shooting game but he's battling, manufacturing points anyway he can, defending like hell, and ending up with a slightly inefficient 39 points in a win. I'm more impressed by that then I am by Embiid laying waste in Washington on December 6th dropping 50 points vs a bad team after not playing for a week

These are “regular season” awards, and the less games you play the less impactful your regular season was.

Maybe a compromise and make an All-NBA nod 60 or 58 games while awards stay at 65? I like where the NBA landed with 65 for everything but I could be open to that conversation. Every year I make my own All-NBA teams for a fun exercise and I used to have a rule, "If you're not even eligible for the regular season scoring title (58 games), I won't even consider you for one of the teams". So while I like 65, again I wouldn't be completely opposed to the All-NBA number going down slightly

Yeah, it sucks that Haliburton is probably going to miss out on 40 million dollars after he played well enough to cash in, but the main reason the NBA has implemented this rule is for the TV rights. If this rule can make these TV companies reach deep into their pockets to own the rights to the NBA, all parties including the players will a very nice raise in there year to year salaries.