Obviously this is an extreme example, but what if a team is 60-2 with a player and 5-15 in the 20 games he missed. Should that guy not be the MVP?
Yeah obviously that player should win the MVP. The question is really does the 65 game rule encourage enough players to take fewer rest days to compensate for the times when a deserving player is deemed ineligible.
For MVP, I dont think the rule is really necessary. But for All-NBA teams I think the tradeoff is probably worth it.
except they tie compensation to making All NBA teams.
Jokic is 2nd in the league in total WinShares this year and leads the league in VORP. He can only miss 1 more game and still be eligible for post season awards. If he misses 2, it seems very strange to me that the player responsible for the 2nd most wins in the entire sport, wouldn't be eligible for any awards, the all nba team, etc.
What would be a reasonable balance to you?
1 player snubbed from an all-nba team = how many extra star player games in the regular season?
Thats the whole point of this. Obviously rule was not put in place to protect the awards. It would be nonsensical from that perspective, no different from putting a points per game floor on MVP eligibility. But the NBA had to do SOMETHING about load management and rest days. Its too hard to police individual occurrences, so instead you just create an incentive for star players to never want to miss a game if they arent actually hurt.
it is more than 1 player though. I used Jokic as an example because he is the best player that could miss out. Cade Cunningham is probably going to miss out because of his collapsed lung. Wemby and Kawhi are close. Other players like Edwards and Booker aren't far off of missing it either
Picture this scenario. It is the last game of the year and the Nuggets and Spurs are locked into their seeding. Jokic and Wemby have played in 64 games. They both play in the meaningless game to get to 65 and one or both gets hurt and misses the playoffs. Is that really what the league wants? This is just another "fix" that doesnt actually address the problem. If you want teams to stop resting healthy players the only way to do it is to fine them and fine them heavily. The pocket book is all teams care about.
Yes. Thats what I want.
And my question wasnt about Jokic. It was about what balance you think would make the rule good. In a hypothetical world where 1 player gets snubbed every 10 years and each season we get an extra 25 star player games the rule becomes obviously good.
In a world where 5 players get snubbed every year and we only get 1 extra star player game per year the rule is obviously bad.
My question is 1) what do you think the current balance is and 2) what would be the proper ratio to make the rule good.
The idea of fining teams for sitting healthy players is too hard to implement.
The only real answer is fines. And the league did that this year. They just didn't do it enough. Fines are the only thing that would work.
Also, there are some obvious examples of teams resting healthy players, but it happens far less frequently than is presented. The vast majority of the time, the player is actually banged up. Maybe they'd play in the playoffs some of the time, but a player shouldn't be forced to play when they are hurt especially when the stakes aren't high.
As I've said elsewhere, I'd prefer a rule that states a player can have 2 games where they take 1 game off in the first 80 games of the season (the last 2 games I wouldn't enforce it), after they've had their 2, 1-game stretches off any time they miss a game they have to miss 3. Players then can't rest when healthy more than twice. They'd take games off only when they need it. If the intent of the 65 game rule is to eliminate healthy scratches, this makes more sense and more directly relates to the healthy scratches.
