We’ve come to a point where NBA players are actually complainig for having to play basketball. The salary cap keeps going up, they’re making more money and playing in fewer back-to-backs than ever, they travel in private planes and stay in the best hotels before practicing at state-of-the-art facilities, yet they don’t want to play.
The league finally addressed the load management issue by implementing a minimum of 65 games played to be eligible for awards or All-NBA selections. Unsurprisingly, they don’t like that.
Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green was the latest player to complain about this, pretty much blaming Joel Embiid’s injury on the fact that he can only miss a handful of more games to be eligible to win MVP.
Draymond Green Doesn’t Like The New Rule
“Joel playing tonight felt very much so because of the 65-game limit,” Green said on the latest episode of his podcast. “Everybody’s happy with this 65-game rule until you’ve got a bum on All-NBA team, until you’ve got somebody who’s not totally deserving of MVP of the league because somebody else didn’t qualify because of this game limit.”
Joel Embiid
Injuries happen; they’re a part of the game. They have been around since the dawn of basketball, and players have played through ailments for decades now. Even nowadays, role players are asked to play through injuries.
“Of course you want to win MVP. You force it, you get out there and you put yourself in harm’s way and then Joel Embiid is hurt now. Is that the goal? Is the goal putting people in harm’s way just so they can qualify for an award? Because I don’t think that was the goal. This man’s actually dealing with an injury,” Green said.
If the new rule isn’t fair, what can the fan who traveled thousands of miles and spent a lot of money to watch his favorite player play once in his life say? What about those who want to watch the product they’re actually paying for?
Embiid’s scoring run is one of the greatest of all time, but he cannot be measured against, say, Wilt Chamberlain, because of the games he missed in between. Also, if he wanted to ‘save’ those 17 games he could miss in the event of an injury, perhaps he should’ve suited up to play in Denver vs. Nikola Jokic, which he hasn’t done since 2019.
see also
Draymond Green responds to Olympics snub
NBA players have one job, and that’s to play the game of basketball. If they cannot do it, that’s fine, but then let those who are actually on the court get the praise they deserve.
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