PACERS STAR COULD BE COUNTING THE $62M COST OF ‘STUPID’ RULE

The NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement is having “unintended consequences” already and it has Golden State Warriors big man Draymond Green claiming “bulls***”.

In case you missed it, when the NBA and player’s union agreed to the new agreement in April last year it also included a player participation policy which had a direct impact on eligibility for some of the league’s major end-of-year awards.

Most notably, it set a 65-game threshold for players to be eligible for MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and All-NBA honours. Players also needed to be on the court for a minimum of 20 minutes in all of those 65 games to be eligible.

The change was part of the league’s move to address concerns over load management, with NBA commissioner Adam Silver saying in June 2022 that the league wanted a “system where our best players are incentivised to be on the floor”.

In the case of reigning MVP and Philadelphia 76ers big man Joel Embiid, however, there is a debate as to whether the new system is incentivising players to be on the floor to their detriment.

Embiid, having already been dealing with a lingering injury heading into Wednesday’s game against Golden State, went down in the final minutes of the game as Jonathan Kuminga fell directly onto his compromised knee.

Sixers writer Kyle Neubeck described it as “absolute stupidity all around”.

“You can’t say the Sixers could have predicted that specifically, but when a gigantic man is favouring one leg as a result of a knee injury, you are playing with fire,” he wrote.

“Hard to believe the guy who looked like a giraffe on ice skates ended up in a dangerous situation.”

Embiid is now undergoing an MRI and has already been ruled out of Philadelphia’s game against the Jazz on Friday, meaning he can only miss five more games before being made ineligible for postseason awards — including MVP.

That is despite Embiid having what former teammate JJ Redick described as “arguably the best season of his career” on his podcast in December last year.

The fact that Embiid played through his knee complaint on Wednesday says more about Philadelphia’s situation than his MVP case given the team was already without guard Tyrse Maxey and needed the superstar big man to be a chance against a desperate Golden State.

ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne said as much on ‘NBA Today’ but added that the 65-game MVP threshold had to also be a factor for Embiid, who now looks little chance of being eligible for the award.

“He’s not playing because of the 65 games but it’s always front and centre in that discussion. You can’t separate it,” Shelburne said.

“He’s playing because the Sixers need him. They need him out there to win… but 65 games is in your head because this is a guy who didn’t get Rookie of the Year when he certainly was the best rookie that year but he didn’t play enough games.

“He’s already lost one MVP where he probably didn’t play enough games and I think that affected his votes.”

Golden State’s Green was far more direct in his opinion on the matter, believing the NBA’s rule change was in a lot of ways forcing players to push through injuries.

“Joel playing tonight felt very much so because of the 65-game limit,” Green said on his podcast.

“What I think is actually quite bulls***, guys have faced those rules before but those same All-NBA teams, those same MVP awards, lists, Defensive Player of the Year, those lists are the same. I once lost a Defensive Player of the Year Award to Kawhi Leonard and I think he played 51 games.

“In turn, you get Joel who comes out there tonight and he forces it. The freak play with him and JK diving for the ball, but maybe it’s not as bad if the knee isn’t already banged up. I don’t really bang with it. Now we got one of our premier faces in this league, the MVP of our league, possibly hurt for an extended period of time because he’s forcing it.”

It is not just Embiid though. Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, who is enjoying a breakout season that saw him named a All-Star starter, described the rule as “stupid” earlier in the week.

In the case of Haliburton, he suffered a hamstring strain and now can only miss five more games before he too becomes ineligible for post-season awards — including All-NBA honours.

That would end up costing Haliburton $41 million ($A62m). How does that work?

Well, the Indiana guard signed a five-year max contract extension with the Pacers this past offseason which starts at 25 per cent of the 2024-25 salary cap if he doesn’t make an All-NBA team.

If he does, that figure rises to 30 per cent, which is equivalent to a $USD41 million difference.

“I think it’s a stupid rule, like plenty of the guys in the league,” Haliburton said to James Boyd of The Athletic.

Taking last year as a case study, five different players including Giannis Antetokounmpo would not have been eligible for All-NBA had these rules been in place.

ESPN personality Michael Wilbon said the league is facing a “real tough balancing act” given the move was meant to appeal to fans and sponsors growing frustrated with star players sitting out games.

Front officer insider Bobby Marks suggested having a tiered approach, although NBA executive vice president Joe Dumars indicated the league won’t be making any changes for next season.

“Any time you put something in there are going to be some unintended consequences,” he told Malika Andrews of ESPN.

“We knew that going in. We put the threshold in that you can miss up to 20 per cent of the season and still be eligible. But we always knew that there could be a situation where one of the players went past 20 per cent of the season who is having a good year. But you can’t not put that rule in because of the one or two guys that it may effect.

“There have been no discussions about that [a change].”

THE DIFFERENT SIDES OF NBA’S SCORING DEBATE

Earlier in the week it was Joel Embiid dropping 70 points and Karl-Anthony Towns scoring 62. Then it was 73 from Luka Doncic and 62 from Devin Booker.

Four historic individual performances that shone a spotlight on some of the most talented players in the NBA right now — and, potentially, one of the biggest issues in the league too?

That is what some of the leading voices in the NBA are trying to work out right now.

Are the kind of 50 and 60-point explosions that used to be crowning moments in steps towards superstardom now the new normal?

“I think there are absolute changes (to be made),” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said before the Warriors’ game against the Lakers, according to The Mercury News.

“You’re not going to make changes to the scheme. Where you’re going to make changes is with the defensive positioning rules that are in place.

“I wish I could tell you the number of times a player wildly drove into us, ran into us, and I went to the ref and the ref used the expression, ‘illegal guarding position.’

“The way we’re interpreting the rules is favouring the offence. Just as we did 20 years ago as a league, when we wanted to open up the game, we changed the interpretation. So we could easily go back and give leeway to the defence.”

It is not the first time Kerr has called out the state of NBA officiating, having previously described the league as a “parade to the free-throw line” after a loss to the Nuggets.

Crucially, Kerr wasn’t so much criticising the referees themselves as he was the rules themselves and how they influence the way officials interpret the game.

As John Hollinger pointed out in a comprehensive column for The Athletic, this is a multi-faceted issue that isn’t necessarily going to be solved by making just one change.

Funnily enough, there was a similar conversation happening in NBA circles around this time last year, when the average NBA team was scoring at a rate of nearly 114 points per 100 possessions — ranking the highest such mark in league history.

And so, while NBA teams are averaging the most points per game (115.6) since 1967-68, it is also worth noting that figure is only up 0.78 per cent over last season according to Associated Press.

That isn’t to say there isn’t a problem but it isn’t a sudden phenomenon either. It is something that has been building over time, a product of the league’s 3-point revolution and new rules that prioritised skill over strength among other factors.

NBA insider Brian Windhorst said earlier in the week that he does expect there to be changes to the rules heading into the 2024-25 season.

“I want to see balance because that’s where we’re a little bit out of whack in the NBA right now,” he said on ‘NBA Today’.

“We don’t have balance. I’ve talked to some head coaches about this and one of the things they’ve talked about is they don’t even know how to coach defence right now because they go out there and coach their players to do certain things then the referee calls a foul.

“Flagrant fouls are being handed out like candy right now. They’re very protective of the star players, which they should be, but players are highly disincentivised from putting their hands on a moving player at all and are very, very highly disincentivised for sending any sort of message.

“I do think the league is out of whack and I do expect there to be changes in the rules into next season that tries to bring this back a little bit and gives the defence a little bit of more of their rights back.”

The NBA’s executive vice president and head of basketball operations, Joe Dumars, pushed back on the idea that the recent scoring eruption is a cause for concern.

“It’s where the game is today,” Dumars told Associated Press on Thursday.

“It’s the pace of the game. It’s the amount of 3s guys are shooting now. You’re going to have some offensive eruptions like that.

“We’re going to see offensive eruptions with this kind of pace and the amount of 3s people shoot. But there’s no push here at the league office from me or anyone else that we want to see a certain score.”

‘OMINOUS’ LEBRON TWEET POSES MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

Everything was going so well for the Lakers.

They had won five of their past seven games. LeBron James and Anthony Davis were both healthy. But with a few losses — and one emoji — the spotlight is back on Los Angeles.

In case you missed it, and if you likely would have — at least until the morning — if you were living over in the States, James sent a tweet out at 2.26am (ET).

There were no words. Nothing to even a hint at what it meant. Just a simple hourglass emoji.

Did it mean anything at all or was it simply the Lakers superstar’s way of playing with everyone, knowing all he has to do to set off a firestorm is to post one single emoji?

Well, in the context of what has happened on the court for the Lakers this week, it certainly isn’t the best look.

First, they snuck past the Warriors in a double-overtime win. Then came a heavy loss to the Rockets and another comfortable defeat at the hands of the Hawks.

The Lakers conceded 417 points in those three games. But just as concerning a number to come from that 1-2 stretch is 121, or how many minutes James played.

It wasn’t like he was forced to play that long either. Sure, the Lakers needed him to go back-to-back in trading shots with Steph Curry in the clutch moments of that double overtime wins.

But playing James for a combined 75 minutes in the blowout losses to Houston and Atlanta felt like a waste. Like the sands of time are running out for the Lakers, who have asked so much of the 39-year-old in recent years but consistently struggled to put the right team around him as James pushes for one final championship.

James did have a few words for reporters after Wednesday’s game, touching on his team’s inconsistency as he declared the Lakers “on any given night could beat any team in the NBA”.

“And then on any given night, we can get our ass kicked by any team in the NBA,” he added.

“I don’t have any message for my teammates,” James later said when asked for a message to his teammates ahead of tough games against the Celtics and Knicks.

“Just go out and do your job.”

“I mean,” James continued, before “chuckling to himself and trailing offer, his frustration clear” according to The Athletic’s Jovan Buha.

Buha reported that a team staffer then thanked him for his time and the interview wrapped up, but not before James revealed he was “about to go in” before being cut off.

“It was another crisis averted — at least temporarily,” Buha wrote.

“A few hours later, James ended the evening with an ominous tweet of his own.”

There was speculation from some hopeful Lakers fans that it could spell the end of coach Darvin Ham’s tenure, but Buha reported on Wednesday that “a head coaching change isn’t expected anytime soon”.

A trade for Hawks guard Dejounte Murray remains a possibility but may not even be enough to save the Lakers or put them in a position for a deep playoffs run like last season, if they even make the post-season in the first place.