After the recent injury to Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid, debate has run rampant in NBA circles about the league’s new 65-game minimum in order to be eligible for awards, such as the league MVP. Embiid is already nearing missing that threshold as the 76ers star deals with a meniscus tear; however, the debate has caused some fans to wonder whether or not it’s fair for the league to consider availability as a part of value.
Recently, NBA executive vice president and former All-Star Joe Dumars weighed in on the subject on SiriusXM NBA radio.
“You have to train your body to play 82 games,” said Dumars, via SiriusXM NBA radio on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “It takes a rigorous training to play 82 games… It’s a privilege to be in this league. Everybody can’t play in the NBA, and so I just don’t want us to lose sight of that… All the stakeholders in the NBA signed off and said [65 games] is a fair number.”
The origins of this discourse can be found in debates surrounding load management, in which healthy NBA players were sitting out games in order to rest for the playoffs. However, what the NBA should do when players sustain legitimate injuries, such as the one Embiid recently sustained, is certainly a different conversation.
It’s generally accepted that the best ability is availability, and so to that end, it’d be objectively hard to argue that a player can miss over a fourth of the season and still truly be the most valuable.
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