Why potential NBA awards guidelines miss the mark

Negotiations on the NBA's new Collective Bargaining Agreement have dragged along all season, but the league and the Players Association have found common ground on one subject: Awards eligibility.

Both sides are "jointly motivated" to establish a minimum number of games that a player must log to be considered for major awards, per Shams Charania of The Athletic. At least for MVP voting, that really hasn't been an issue.

Karl Malone played the fewest games for an MVP, with 49 in 1999. However, Malone only missed one game of the 50-game season. Nearly all of the MVPs with the least games played in shortened seasons: LeBron James played 62 of 66 games in 2011-12, Giannis Antetokounmpo played in 63 of 67 in 2019-20, and Nikola Jokic played all 72 games in 2020-21.

For the MVPs who truly missed time, you have to look at Bill Walton's injury-shortened 58-game MVP campaign in 1977-78, Bob Cousy missing eight of the 72 games in 1956-57, and Allen Iverson playing 71 out of 82 games in 2000-01.

Other than that, the most games missed by a recent MVP was 10, by James Harden in 2017-18 and Antetokounmpo the next season. And it's hard to imagine that the minimum threshold for games is going to be as high as 72. For comparison, a player needs to play 58 games to qualify for the scoring title.

Awards voters are already punishing players for missing games. One of the biggest reasons Joel Embiid has finished second in the MVP vote the last two seasons was that he played only 51 games in 2020-21, and 68 games last year. Games played is already a huge factor in the voting.

Other awards have had lower thresholds. Rudy Gobert won Defensive Player of the Year in 2017-18 after playing only 56 games. But it's hard to imagine that the NBA is really worried about Rudy Gobert sitting out games with these rules. No offense to the Stifle Tower, but Gobert probably isn't making or breaking the fan experience.

So what are these guidelines? They're window dressing, a way for the NBA and NBAPA to look like they're addressing a problem that isn't related to awards at all. Load management mostly comes from team doctors and statistical analysis. Awards consideration is way down the list of team priorities.

If they were really serious about players missing games, the NBA and NBAPA should be discussing shortening the season or eliminating back-to-backs. Not creating playing-time standards that awards voters are already informally enforcing.