The NBA invented the 65-game limit rule to address what it perceived to be a major problem (that, fairly or not, will always get tied back to Gregg Popovich and the Spurs): load management. The idea was simple: star players were being rested in situations such as the second night of back-to-backs or late in the season to protect them from injury and save them for the postseason. (Think back to 2011, when Manu Ginobili broke his elbow in the opening minute of the Spurs’ regular season finale: a game whose
only meaning to the Spurs was securing home court advantage in the Finals if the Bulls made it. News flash, MVP Derrick Rose got hurt, and they didn’t. Neither did the Spurs, who couldn’t get past the Grizzlies in round one with a hobbled Manu. No one wants a repeat of that.)
The NBA didn’t like the load management, especially when those games were on national television, so they created an incentive to keep stars on the court: if a player don’t appear in 65 games, he is not eligible for regular season awards and All-NBA or Defensive Teams, which can directly impact a player’s contract extension or built in bonuses. Thus the rule was born, but here’s the problem: it addresses the wrong issue.
The NBA can point to load management as the leading problem towards stars missing games, but it’s not; it’s more injuries. As we stand, several MVP candidates are at risk of or will miss the 65-game minimum due to injury in the last couple of weeks. Cade Cunningham suffered a collapsed lung, Luka Doncic a strained hamstring, and Victor Wembanyama a bruised rib just last night. Nikola Jokic is also toing the line after a knee injury earlier in the season sidelined him for 16 straight games.
But here’s the thing: these players aren’t on the brink of missing out because they were “load managing” for 18 or more games, it was injury. For example, of Wemby’s 14 missed games so far, only two of them could be identified as “load management”. The other 12 were ten for the dreaded calf strain and two from a strained oblique, and the same can be said for the other players mentioned above. As a result, instead of punishing load management, the league is punishing injury, possibly even forcing players back sooner than needed so they can earn the right to be recognized. In a way, they are also putting more emphasis on the regular season than playoffs, which seems counter intuitive.
Not coincidently, YouTube channel Thinking Basketball just published a video today about why the NBA has this rule wrong. They look at the leading cause of increased injury in the modern NBA — namely the quicker pace, more movement and hard planting, and players pushing off (which was how Jokic got hurt) — and what the NBA can do to address the REAL problem (including, the two things the NBA doesn’t want to acknowledge: the long schedule and back-to-backs). It’s a good 15-minute watch, so be sure to check it out below or with the link above.
The NBA’s heart may in the right place in trying to put the best possible product on for the fans each an every night, but as they are wont to do, they brought a solution for the wrong problem, thus creating an entirely new one.
