Joel Embiid’s Spectacular Season Threatened by New NBA Rule on Player Resting

Joel Embiid scored 70 points in a marvelous display on Monday night against the San Antonio Spurs. The 29-year-old Cameroonian center, who is also on the United States pre-selection, the forging of a new Dream Team for Paris 2024, became the ninth player to reach 70 in a game in the entire history of the NBA. He was also the first to achieve it in less than 37 minutes and the only one capable of adding 18 rebounds and 5 assists to that number of points. The minimum would have to be lowered to 65+15+5 and even there only one player appears: Michael Jordan, once in 1990. Embiid finally won his much-desired MVP last season. He averaged 33.1 points, 10.2 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.7 blocks. Currently, he is at 36.1, 11.6, 5.9 and 1.9. Better in everything, he also in three-point percentage (36.3 per 33%) and free throws (88.7 per 85.7).

If he finished above those 36 points on average, the Sixers center would be only the fourth to do so in a full season. So far James Harden (36.1), Michael Jordan (37.1) have done it… and Wilt Chamberlain, who did it five times. In his legendary (and impossible) 1961-62 season, Superman played 48.5 minutes per game (he didn’t even miss overtime) and averaged 50.4 points. He is the only one with more points than minutes on average in a season, something that Embiid is also doing now, with an even better ratio per minute: 34.3 minutes for 36.1 points. Having passed the halfway point of the season, Embiid seems the clear favorite to repeat as MVP, given his level over the last two months. In December he averaged 40.2 points, 12.6 rebounds and 4.9 assists with 2.1 blocks and 60% shooting from the field. So far in January he has 40.3 points, 11 rebounds and 5.4 assists. He has also scored at least 30 points in twenty-one games in a row, a streak that only James Harden and, of course, Wilt Chamberlain (four times!) had achieved until now.

Embiid leads the NBA in scoring (ahead of Luka Doncic and his 33.6 points per night) and is fifth in rebounds. In assists, the leader is Tyrese Haliburton, with 12.6 basket passes per game. A figure that, in all history, only John Stockton (five times), Magic Johnson (three) and Isiah Thomas and Kevin Porter (one each) have reached. The Pacers point guard (23 years old) is on the rise to great NBA stardom. His team, with him at the helm, manages with the best offensive rating in history. He has an incredible ratio of five assists for every turnover and also produces 23.6 points and 4.1 rebounds with an excellent 40% in high-volume three-pointers (more than eight shot per night). Haliburton is going to be an all-star for the second time this season and also, like Embiid, is on the US pre-selection for the Paris Games (he already played in the last World Cup).

Haliburton, already one of the best point guards in the NBA, was chosen with number 12 in the 2020 Draft, by the Sacramento Kings. In February 2023, the Californians transferred him to Indiana in order to acquire Domantas Sabonis. And this past summer, to seal a union that has ended up being very happy, the Pacers gave Haliburton an extension of his rookie contract for five more years and a maximum of $260 million. If it is as it was told, the negotiations lasted just twenty minutes, and the point guard signed a maximum extension (206 million at least) with the possibility of reaching those 260 (according to increases in the salary cap and other variables) if the maximum became super maximum (25 to 30% of the cap for him). His way to achieve this, according to NBA requirements, is to be chosen in this season’s All NBA Teams (the Best Quintets: first, second and third).

A new rule that complicates things

However, Embiid may be left without his second MVP regardless of his averages at the end of the season. And Tyrese Haliburton may close that door to the supermax that would give him an extra $54 million in his new contract. The reason is the new policy for controlling player breaks, rules that the NBA has implemented for this season (in which a new collective agreement has been signed) and which decided to put a heavy hand and red lines to control what It began to be perceived as a gigantic problem in the NBA, something that took away the seriousness and rank of the regular phase and raised doubts about the players’ commitment.

All at a crucial moment in terms of the interest in the games and the connection with the fans because the new television contracts are being negotiated, the cornerstone of the golden age that the NBA is experiencing economically. And those large television operators want to know that they are buying a serious, formal product. The NBA has been introducing new elements to improve the competitiveness of the regular season and cause new television impacts (the play in, the In-Season Tournament…) but it was necessary to monitor the players, stop the avalanche of breaks that, on the other hand, , in most cases it is actually programmed by the franchises. The competitive ones, so that their players arrive fresher for the playoffs; Those who fall into the deepest level of reconstruction, to lose more games and improve their options for the next draft.

Starting this season, the NBA has introduced a limit on the number of minimum games that must be played to be eligible for most individual awards. A player has to play at least 65 regular season games to be eligible for MVP, All-NBA Teams, Defender of the Year, Best Defensive Teams and Most Improved Player. Left out, this rule does not apply, are the Rookie of the Year and the Best Rookie Quintets. In the event of an injury that ends a player’s season early, he must have reached 62 games and have played in at least 85% of his team’s games prior to the injury. Furthermore, to avoid tricks and tricks, only matches played are considered (for these criteria) those in which he has been on the court for at least 20 minutes, although there may be two in which he remains on the court for at least fifteen.

This has been combined with the new player resting policy (PPP) that expands and deepens a first framework (player resting policy, PRP) that was already established in 2017 to try, above all, to ensure that the stars in the most important matches on the calendar, those that are of special relevance for the major national television networks. Now, the teams have to ensure that there is not more than one of their stars (a criterion was established to define who they are) who rests (dropped out without a justified medical reason) in the same game, that they play in the games with national television and those of the In-Season Tournament, which has already covered its first edition, and it must be prioritized that absences and breaks coincide with matches on the court itself and not with visits to pavilions that sometimes the teams only visit once a year. season. Furthermore, long and unjustified absences are combated if they attack the “integrity” of the competition. The fines also became much harsher: 100,000 for the first infraction, 250,000 for the second and 1.25 million for the third with, from then on, an extra million in each subsequent penalty, if any.

Players already in the countdown

It’s that 65-game rule that can really affect players like Joel Embiid and Tyrese Haliburton. The former has missed ten of the first 42 that the Sixers have played. So he has to play thirty-three (he has 32) to reach the minimum 65. The Sixers have forty left, so Embiid can only miss seven more in the second half of the season. The eighth would mark the eighteenth total absence and would mean that he could no longer go over 64 and, therefore, could not aspire to the awards and, in his case, an MVP for which he is now a favorite.

Haliburton has a lot of money at stake, if any. He is heading towards the All-NBA quintets, but he has to reach 65 games to be among those eligible and hope that his extension is super-maximum. He has played 34 of the Pacers’ 44 games. He has missed ten, so he is in the same situation as Embiid, and he cannot miss eight more or he will be out of the selection criteria for the awards.

As there are contractual issues at stake, Haliburton’s case has already generated comments that point to the dark areas of these new (and forced) rules: the point guard has missed six of the Pacers’ last seven games due to a muscle injury. He played one, in Portland against the Blazers, in which he seemed uncomfortable, not 100%. “Our coaching staff was not happy with how his body responded,” coach Rick Carlisle said afterward, before the player was inactive again. Can it cause players to push more than necessary in risk situations to reach 65 games when historic prizes or important lots of millions are at stake in their contracts? Could there be tensions between franchises and players if they believe that the team slows down its presence on the court to prevent, for example, a maximum from becoming a super maximum? These are possible effects that we will discover from some rules that have just been implemented and that, from the outset, try to correct a situation by force, that of the industrialized management of minutes and matches (breaks) in the regular phase, to which not even it should have arrived.

2024-01-25 10:53:42
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