NBA: What is the 65-game rule that would leave Joel Embiid without being able to repeat the season’s MVP award

After winning last season’s best player award NBAabove stars like Nikola Jokic, all signs pointed to him Joel Embiid He would be chosen again with the current season’s top individual award. However, the new collective agreement published by the League provides for a rule that can put the center of the teams in check. Philadelphia 76ers and forever change the struggles among aspirants to prize MVP: to achieve it, it is mandatory to play at least 65 of the 82 matches of the regular phase.

Therefore, every player can be one absent in up to 17 games -which represents a minimum of 80% attendance- if you wish to fight for the individual prizes that will be awarded at the end of the competition. It’s a challenge for Embiid to face, despite being the most likely to win the award again. The fact is that the 29-year-old Cameroonian, like other great figures, is not characterized by the highest shot of all.

In the 37 games played this season, The 76ers star was already absent in 12 of those. Therefore, you will only be able to lose a maximum of five games out of the remaining 45. A difficult statistic to satisfy if you take into account that Embiid, in the eight years he has been in the NBA, has only twice managed to exceed 65 duels played in the same season : in 2022 and 2023.

Even during Wednesday’s loss to the Golden State Warriors (119-107), the pin set off the alarms and worried all of Philadelphia when He left the field with a left knee injury during the fourth quarter. And depending on how many games he has to miss during his recovery, his MVP aspirations could remain in the balance.

The good news is that the goal of winning the award again depends exclusively on Embiid himself: his health and continued recovery are the factors that will have to accompany him until the end of the season, which will be in April. However, after the duel against the Warriors, he made it clear that he has no intention of pushing his body.

“No matter how many games I play, the goal is to stay healthy for the rest of the year. I’ve already won the MVP title. If I have the opportunity to get the second one, I will, but I’m not. I’m going to force or pressure my body to reach it”said the Cameroonian after dropping to fifth place in the Eastern Conference.

In addition to maintaining a 67% attendance so far this season, the difference Embiid makes on the court still catapults him as the best candidate to be the best player of the season. The statistics support this: adding up the NBA Cup games, in the 33 games in which the center was present, 26 ended with a victory in his favor. While in the 12 in which he did not participate, the 76ers won only three times.

Furthermore, individual numbers are the other aspect that leaves the Cameroonian at the top: he averaged 36 points and shot 56.5%, along with 11.4 rebounds and 5.8 assists.

However, taking into account his current rate of competition, it is estimated that Embiid will reach a maximum of 60 games played this season, a number that puts him out of contention for MVP. In this sense, this is how other nominees for the award are keen to keep it. Among these it appears Nikola Jokicwho also runs a certain risk because he missed a total of seven games.

Given this question, Why do major characters lose a high number of games? It is due to load managementa program used by NBA franchises in which they decide to protect their star players in multiple games to avoid the physical and mental overload they could suffer by playing 82 games in six months (October to April).

Precisely this regulation is what the American league seeks to put aside. Considering that the NBA, in addition to thinking about sports, also thinks about entertainment, it is not fruitful that its top exponents lose a high number of games per season.

Considering the regulation of the 65 matches, several prominent players are involved if they want to have the chance to compete for any of the individual prizes, starting with examples such as Jimmy Butler, Donovan Mitchell and Kyrie Irving, who is already one of the first victims of the rule.

That path is the one Embiid appears to be following as he waits to learn the severity of his injury. The doors are open for a possible surprise in the MVP award, although everything will end up depending on the shots that the Cameroonian will make in April, a level of participation that the Philadelphia 76ers aspire to be as high as possible.