The league’s 65-game requirement for major awards was designed to discourage load management and make stars show up more often. In principle, that is understandable. In practice, the closing days of this season have exposed how awkward the system can look when games played are treated as a brighter line than actual workload. The rule, as outlined by the NBA, generally requires a player to appear in at least 65 regular-season games to remain eligible for honors such as MVP and All-NBA, with minute thresholds attached to those appearances as well.
That has produced a strange end-of-season reality. Victor Wembanyama became eligible by clearing the 65-game threshold in San Antonio’s win over Dallas on Friday, while Anthony Edwards has already been ruled ineligible, and the latest eligibility trackers show Luka Dončić and Cade Cunningham still short of the line entering the final day – Luka, who has been ruled out for the final game will finish the season with 64 games played, Cade, who will likely play, can only reach 64. Kawhi Leonard, meanwhile, reached 65 games and put himself in position to qualify.
And this is where the argument sharpens.
Because when you look at total minutes played, the picture becomes harder to defend as intuitive. Luka Dončić has logged 2,289 minutes this season. Cade Cunningham sits at 2,150. Anthony Edwards at 2,137. All three have shouldered heavy usage, nightly responsibility, and significant physical demand. Kawhi Leonard, who is eligible, has played 2,085 minutes. Victor Wembanyama, also eligible, has logged 1,866.
That does not make Wembanyama or Kawhi less deserving. It simply highlights the disconnect. The system values crossing a games-played threshold more than the total volume of basketball actually played. A player can accumulate more minutes, carry a larger burden, and still be excluded, while another remains eligible by meeting the appearance requirement.
That is the flaw.
The rule was meant to reward availability, but availability is not only about games. It is also about how much a player is actually on the floor, how much he is asked to do, and how consistently he carries that responsibility. When a player with significantly more minutes can be disqualified while another with fewer minutes qualifies, the system starts to feel less like a measure of contribution and more like a technicality.
This is exactly the tension critics, and players like Wembanyama himself, have pointed toward. The NBA succeeded in creating a clear rule. But clarity does not always equal fairness.
Right now, the league has a system where one extra game can outweigh hundreds of minutes. Where workload can be secondary to attendance. Where elite seasons risk disappearing from awards ballots because they fall just short of an arbitrary line.
