The 65 Game Minimum Rule is Ruining the MVP Race

So I was in Brooklyn on Wednesday night and uh I have to admit I, no, no, I didn't watch much of the game either.

I think it was 46 to 16 when I went downstairs to the press room and started doing some work there uh, not, not good, not good.

I wanna get into that part of the conversation when we talk about expansion, but you know, went to the Thunder locker room after the game, had about a 10-minute conversation with Shay Giltis Alexander, um.

Who You know, in addition to keeping that 100, was it 130 games in a row now, he scored 20 consecutive points.

Remarkable.

I thought he might, I mean, he got it early against, uh, Brooklyn, but I wonder if that was gonna be the game early because he, that he'd miss out because that was over in like the 1st 5 minutes.

Uh, but we were talking a little bit about the MVP and you're seeing a lot of guys out there.

Talk about how much they want it.

Like Victor Wambayama says he wants to be the MVP.

Jalen Brown said he wants to be the MVP, and I wrote about this, or I will write about this by the time people listen to this show, uh, over at SI.

com.

And Shay's like , you know what, so do I.

I still want to be the MVP.

I won the MVP last year.

I still think I'm worthy.

I'm paraphrasing him now, but I think, I still think I'm worthy of being the MVP this year.

And this is a guy that in addition to putting up comparable or better stats than he did last season, has Absorbed much more responsibility this year than he had to last year.

I mean, last year, the Thunder did have some injuries, most notably to Chet Holmgren, but this year, that backcourt's been banged up all season long.

Jalen Williams at the start, Jalen Williams towards the finish.

AJ Mitchell has been in and out.

Like they have dealt with a lot of injuries.

Hell, Jared McCain is now playing for them.

He wasn't playing at the start of the season because he wasn't on the damn team.

Uh, and Shay through it all has been like their North Star.

He has been their guiding light.

He's missed a little bit of time as well, which is kind of leveled the playing field with Wemby, with Jokic, and some of these other guys when it comes to games played, but You can certainly make an argument and a good one, that Shay Gillis Alexander is better this year than he was last year.

And this is, I'm bringing this up because I think this is going to be a really competitive vote when it comes down to it in mid-April.

You've got Shay right now probably leading the field.

Jokic gonna get consideration though I, I wonder if the Nuggets' position right now and how they're kind of sleepwalking a little bit through the end of the season, if that cost him something.

And then there's the Wampanyama Club and You are the president of the Webayama fan club.

There's, there's the Webayama Club.

Say, hey, I know he's averaging like 29.

something minutes per game, but show me a player that's more impactful than Victor Wembayama.

So where do you stand on all this?

Is your mind made up when it comes to MVP as we record this in mid-March, or do you think There's still some jockeying that can be done on some of these ballots.

Um, ask Mark Broussard at the NBA who's in charge of collecting our ballots.

My mind is never made up until the end of the last night of the season.

I really believe that.

I, I, I don't understand why people will sort of vote so early.

You count the first week or two of the season.

You should people do that.

Do they vote that early?

Do they?

I think they do so because I, I get a hard time from our friends at the NBA who are so kind to extend invitations to all of us to vote.

So I'm not criticizing, but it's the Rachel, I get an, I get a text the morning of the last day being like Rachel, you, you know what time these ballots are due, right?

So, you know, like that.

But, but what I was gonna say is, so my mind is not made up.

The Wendy thing is so interesting.

I hear people cite that stat, oh, he's only playing 29 minutes a game.

I actually think that's more of an argument for him.

If he is doing all of these things in only 29 minutes a game.

That's, that's more of an MVP than a guy who is, you know, takes the entire game to get this stuff done, and is therefore not making as, as tough an impact.

Look, I think Shea is, is currently the leader in the clubhouse.

I think Wemby is right there after him.

I think Jokic has sort of dropped off.

It is not a Jokichea battle anymore, um, where the team is, you know, he rushed back from injury.

I, I assume, to help the team.

I think that was the first priority, but also to stay in contention for, um, you know, MVP and All-Star vote, I mean all NBA voting.

And he just hasn't looked quite the same.

And that's been Aaron Gordon's been in and out and, you know, all this stuff, but I don't think he's the number 2 anymore.

I think a lot of people, even if they rate Shea first, they'll put Wemby as number 2 on their ballots.

One of the things I'm waiting to see is do the Spurs overtake the Thunder in the standings, and I, I think it's unlikely given the number of games back they are.

I think they're 3.5, and I think there's what, only 14 games or something to play.

I'd have to look at their individual schedules.

They're 3 in the loss column, which is important because they do have the tiebreaker, so they don't have to.

I was gonna say, but they have the tie.

Tiebreaker.

Look, I'm not saying it's gonna happen.

I'm just saying that is something I will take into consideration.

If they can make a push and, and Oklahoma City has some tough games coming up here, and the Spurs, you know, I mean, they've had such a tremendous final, what, half of the season.

If that extends and they get to the top of the standings, that will factor in my vote the same way the fact of where the Nuggets are lower in the standings, you know, affects my vote for.

Jokic because the MVP has to help his team win.

That is a big deal to me.

So, all of that to me is part of the brew.

Um, you know, it's interesting, Cade Cunningham's name has been mentioned, you know, not as the MVP, but, you know, we like to introduce guys at a younger age into the conversation, right?

He's in the MVP conversation, and that really means top five in voting and the finalists, quote unquote, for the MVP.

I don't know if he's going to hit the number now, which I think is a real shame because he's had such a tremendous season.

I will say for the 20 and 46th time, I don't think the 65 game rule belongs with certainly not the all NBA voting and, and probably not the other voting as well.

If you can't trust your voters to know how many games a guy has to play to be.

One of these awards, Defensive Player of the Year, any of that.

I, I'm not sure what you're doing with the voting system.

I also think that the problem you've attached to things that are unattached.

The problem the 65 game rule was supposed to try to beat out of the NBA was player rest, right?

Oh, players are resting, we want players to play more.

Let's give them an incentive and let's make the incentive.

You won't get these postseason awards.

First of all, A lot of guys whose contracts are not tied to the postseason awards, they don't care.

So you're not getting as much incentive.

You know , a guy like Kawhi Leonard is staying out for as long as he needs or feels he wants to stay out .

He's not rushing back to make all NBA or any of these awards.

And who it ends up penalizing the most are either the guys who do have their contracts tied to it and face some injuries, but do deserve that sort of higher designation.

And would be voted to an all NBA team otherwise, like a Cade Cunningham.

I don't think his contract is tied to it, but you have these players who clearly belong on an all NBA team.

I don't know if it's just disattaching 65 games from all NBA and keeping it for the other awards.

I don't know if it's disattaching it from unattaching it from third team all NBA.

I mean, I think that's a compromise for people who don't feel comfortable doing it entirely.

1st and 2nd team all NBA, you gotta play 65 games, but the third team.

I've always used the third team, I don't know about you, Chris, as a little bit of like, hey, we know that this, this guy was one of the best players in the league this year.

Because to me, way more than All-Star, which is about stars.

All NBA is a record.

It is a record when you look back through the history books of who were the best 15 players in the NBA that year.

And I usually use The 3rd team to fill in with guys who I think are among those 15 players, even if there's wonky numbers because of injuries or other things.

I'd like to be able to go back to doing that, and I would certainly put Kay Cunningham on my 3rd team all NBA even if he doesn't make the cutoff.

They said 2 weeks, he'll be reevaluated.

We know what that means.

So 14 days, he'll be reevaluated.

Um, he would have to, he's played 61 games.

To play in the team's last 4 games, he would have to come back in 18 days.

So if he's not back in 18 days he's out of that conversation and I just think and he doesn't have the kind of he's not dealing with the kind of situation that you gotta rush a guy back for either like this when they when I saw the way they phrased that like you did like reevaluated all right, let's now it's to me it's not only about is he gonna come back at the end of the regular season is will he come back for the playoffs like that I think DJ McCollum took a long time to come back, long time, long time from a similar type of thing.

So it's, it's definitely, I, I agree with you there, um, this.

It's not just Kate Cunningham.

Like Wemiyama is like a twisted ankle away from missing out on all that.

Same thing with Shay.

Like same thing with, I think Jokic in the same, he's in the same boat too.

Like all these guys, there's still a dozen games left in the season, maybe a couple more.

Like the, it's possible that more, it could be more than just Kate Cunningham that winds up missing out on these awards.

Uh, look, you want to take a more radical approach to the 65 game rule.

I'm more in favor of just dropping it to 60 because 90-something% of the time.

I'm not gonna vote for a guy that has not crossed the 60-game threshold, and that's just my own personal philosophy.

It's, it's not exactly apples to apples, but I remember the year that Joel Embiid was awesome, but he only played 51 games and he finished runner-up for MVP.

Like, sometimes you have an outlier that, you know, makes it really difficult, but for the most part.

If they're not crossing 60 games, I tend to lean towards other people who may have lesser statistics but are in that category.

So I would like to see them drop 5 more games off this and play 60 games.

Let, let me ask you a question, Chris.

How long have you been covering the NBA?

Oh God, 23 years now.

OK.

Do you think you have good judgment about who's had a good season?

People listening to the show probably would say.

No, but I do think I have good judgment.

Yes, right.

You, you are an expert.

You literally are an expert on the NBA.

You've seen players' careers rise and fall.

You've seen how guys get through a season.

You are able to use your judgment to say, hey, sometimes it's 61 games, Joel Embiid does deserve to be the second runner, you know, runner, the runner-up.

Hey, if, you know, if Victor Webuyama falls below this threshold.

You, you, he has been one of the most impactful guys of the season, even if he plays 63 games.

You just talked about LeBron James.

You're telling me LeBron James playing at this level, in whatever role he's in, he's playing it to an extreme.

He has been really good all.

Season.

And you're telling me that at 41, playing this way, he can't even make 3rd team all NBA because, oh, no, no, no, no, he's had to rest in some games because he's 41 years old.

Of course, he deserves to make an all NBA team.

I put him on 3rd team all NBA and I just , I, I hate it.

Like you have voters for a reason.

Otherwise, just let a computer do it.

Yeah, this could be the year that they shake the whole thing up.

A lot of guys that are worthy of these awards do not wind up on these all NBA teams.

You made a good point about the money because the money is a variable in all this.

Those max contracts get goosed for guys that make all NBA teams.

This could, in addition to the half a dozen other things that Adam Silver has to deal with this offseason, it's gonna be a very busy offseason for Adam Silver.

He's got a lot going on, uh, to deal with.

This could be on that agenda as well.