Knicks swingman Donte DiVincenzo is one of several notable players who will be ineligible for end-of-season awards this season despite playing in far more than 65 games, as James Herbert of CBS Sports observes. DiVincenzo appeared in 81 games this season, but technically didn’t meet the NBA’s 65-game criteria.
As we outlined in our glossary entry on the NBA’s new 65-game rule, a game only counts toward the 65-game minimum if the player logged at least 20 minutes. A player is also permitted to play 20+ minutes in just 63 games as long as there were at least two additional games in which he played 15+ minutes.
DiVincenzo played 20+ minutes in 62 games and logged at least 19 minutes in seven more, including one in which he played 19:51. If he had reached the 20-minute threshold in one of those games, he would’ve been award-eligible, but he just missed out. The Knicks wing would have been included on Most Improved Player ballots from multiple voters, including JJ Redick, who took to Twitter to express displeasure with the rule.
As Herbert points out, DiVincenzo’s teammate Isaiah Hartenstein is another player who might have received award consideration but is considered ineligible despite appearing in 75 games, since he played 20+ minutes in just 50 of those contests. Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga, another Most Improved candidate, played in 74 games but had 20+ minutes in just 61 of them, so he’s also ineligible.
Pelicans center Jonas Valanciunas (82 starts), Mavericks wing Derrick Jones (76 games, including 66 starts), and Clippers swingman Terance Mann (71 starts) likely wouldn’t have been serious candidates for any awards, but they’re a few of the other players who paradoxically failed to meet the 65-game criteria due to the nature of the rule. For what it’s worth, Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News (Twitter link) says he would have put Jones on his All-Defensive Second Team if he could have.
Here’s more from around the Atlantic:
- As Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes, the Sixers are once again entering the postseason with questions about the health of Joel Embiid, who sat out Sunday’s regular season finale and has played just five games since returning from knee surgery. However, Embiid is on track to play in Wednesday’s play-in game. He practiced on both Monday and Tuesday, per head coach Nick Nurse; 76ers guard De’Anthony Melton (back) did not (Twitter links via Kyle Neubeck and Derek Bodner of PHLY Sports).
- After a disappointing season in Brooklyn, the Nets‘ roster figures to undergo an overhaul this summer, and the players who finished this season with the team are bracing for that possibility, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. “I don’t think (any) of my years in the league I had the same team two years in a row,” Dorian Finney-Smith said. “Even if you win, teams still make moves, so I can only imagine how this summer’s gonna be.”
- Nets forward Mikal Bridges admitted that it was a challenge to maintain a positive outlook during a “really tough” season and said that working on “being better mentally” will be one of his goals for this offseason, Lewis writes for The New York Post. He pointed to a December 27 loss to Milwaukee in which the Nets rested most of their regulars and the disappointing road trip that followed as low points. “The Milwaukee game and losing on that road trip, that was tough. I think that was a part of it. That didn’t help. For the players, I know that I was pretty hurt from that, I was pretty pissed off about that situation,” Bridges said. “That’s just part of it. I think I’ve failed at that part mentally. I was doing pretty good mentally, but I didn’t do a pretty good job of that this year. I let my emotions get to me.”
I could have seen DJJ being on some 2nd Team All-Defense ballots. Not as a winner, but at least a vote-getter.
Honestly, while I feel like the minutes limit is a fair criterion to apply to stars, it’s not for everyone. Something the league should look at moving forward. Maybe it should even be handled on a case-by-case basis so things like DDV missing out on the award by literally a minute don’t happen.
Yeah, I’d axe it for MIP. Or at least drop it to 60 games, if not slightly lower.
Redick is such a try hard
Redick is right on this one IMO. The rule is to prevent load management, yet DDV played all but one game. Make it make sense.
Possibly, I was more just referring to him sparking needling twitter wars for no reason other than to promote Jj Redick
– It’s his brand, and I find it/him obnoxious and tiring
Reddick is making a ton of money because he’s a try hard.
For guys who play in 65 games more than nominally, the league could provide more averaging alternatives to meet the “minutes per game” requirement.
But IMO the MIP award isn’t the poster child for that change. If the voters took MIP more literally than it might be, but they don’t. The award has, to my knowledge, never gone to a guy who’s actually improved the most during a year, or even a guy going from reserve to starter during the year. The winners, and their main competition, have pretty much always been established multi-year starters who have been ascending (in game and/or profile) since well before the season in question, but demonstrate it most definitively then. It’s why there can be “favorites” for MIP prior to the start of the year.