The Oklahoma City-Denver game could have starred the NBA's two most recent MVPs: the reigning one in Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a three-time winner in Nuggets forward Nikola Jokic. Except they both sat out.
They weren't alone.
All the other regular starters for the Thunder and Nuggets were ruled out too. And around the NBA, no fewer than 168 players -- including 14 members of the Memphis Grizzlies -- were held out Friday night because of injury or illness.
Every team was playing game 81 -- the next-to-last game -- of their seasons Friday night. They are all off Saturday and then play Sunday to close the regular season.
168 players?! That is a lot of players to sit out.
Okay so all 30 teams played on Friday. 15 games. So there was an average of 11-12 players out in each game. Or 5-6 players per team.
The Nuggets entered Friday still having seeding to play for, and in Jokic's case, there's still award eligibility to obtain. He needs to play in one more game, so it would seem likely that the Nuggets will play him Sunday so he can get on the ballot for MVP, All-NBA and other awards.
"We're all aware of that," Nuggets coach David Adelman told reporters before the game. Postgame, he said "an adult conversation" would be had Saturday about the best course of action.
San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama, needing to play 20 minutes to reach the 65-game standard and be eligible for postseason awards, was taken out after hitting exactly that number of minutes -- then went back into the game, evidently having convinced the Spurs that he needed a bit more on-court work.
He finished with 40 points, 13 rebounds and five assists in 26 minutes during a 139-120 win over the Dallas Mavericks.
"If I had 65 [games] before, I for sure wouldn't have played," Wembanyama said.
Jazz, Grizzlies combine to use 13 players
The Utah Jazz used seven players in its 147-101 win over the Grizzlies -- and was the deeper team. Memphis had only six players.
It wasn't the game of the year, to put it mildly.
i didn?t fact check but I heard that memphis only played one rostered player
It's actually either 0 or 2, depending on how you count 2-way players.
Memphis has 7 players ruled out for the season, leaving them with only 11 healthy players on the roster (15 normal contracts plus 3 two-way contracts). The NBA, however, has rules that allow "hardship exemptions" in cases like this: 1 10-day contract spot for the first 4 players out long term, then 1 more for every additional player. For the Grizzlies, that means an additional 4 players, putting them up to 22 total.
So with 14 players ruled out, that left 8 playable players for Friday's game. 2 of them played all 48 minutes, then 3 played ~40 minutes and one played ~24 minutes. 2 players (Taj Gibson and Javon Small) were healthy scratches. Of those 8, 3 are on two-way contracts (including Small) and Taj Gibson is on a normal contract, while the other 4 are on the exempt contracts.
In other words, they played ZERO players on normal NBA contracts, two 2-way players, and 4 hardship-exemption players who are on 10-day contracts. It reminds me of the Lakers back in 2014, when Robert Sacre stayed in the game after getting his 6th foul because they ran out of healthy subs.
