Jokic knocks NBA’S 65-game rule after Embiid injury
INDIANAPOLIS>> No matter how many All-stars the NBA filed into a packed room Saturday to talk over one another in simultaneous news conferences, a silence reverberated loudest. Loud enough to be heard in at least a few of the questions.
The most significant absence in Indianapolis this weekend is the one that’s shaking up the 2023-24 MVP race.
Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid was the presumptive favorite until early February when he underwent surgery to repair his lateral meniscus. The left knee injury has rendered him ineligible to repeat as league MVP under new NBA policy, which requires players to appear in a minimum of 65 games to be considered for end-ofyear awards such as MVP and ALL-NBA.
The procedure will sideline Embiid long enough that he almost definitively wouldn’t have won MVP even without the new rule.
However, his situation has still sparked debate in league circles about whether or not the 65game minimum should have been instituted in the first place.
Why? Because there was wide speculation Embiid felt pressured to play through a pre-existing knee injury in order to maintain awards eligibility, especially after getting ridiculed for missing his fourth consecutive road game against the Nuggets — and MVP adversary
Nikola Jokic — in late January.
Two games later, Embiid was back in the lineup when Golden State’s Jonathan Kuminga fell on his leg and caused the injury that required surgery.
Jokic is perversely positioned to benefit from Embiid’s unfortunate situation. The Nuggets center is the new betting favorite to win his third MVP the sheer length of the cuts. “You just can’t help but notice. It’s all over his arms,” he said. “Probably because he’s not moving as quickly.”
If someone moves in slow motion, Jackson hypothesized, a swipe across their arm will naturally not be as swift.
Deny, deny, deny
in the last four years. But he takes no joy in that. He was asked about the 65game rule Saturday during his media session at Allstar weekend.
“Definitely forcing players to play, even when they’re injured or whatever,” Jokic said. “But we saw what happened with Joel. … I don’t know. I just don’t like it, how it forces players to play even identified as the reason Ray Allen started wearing a shooting sleeve.
“To each their own,” Jackson said. “Some people really like having long nails. It helps them. Tougher, rowdier, I guess. Some people like to scratch. … As long as you ain’t out here endangering anybody.”
Jackson is part of a large faction of players more interested in hand upkeep. He recalls being told when he was new to the NBA that he should “take care of what takes care of you.” Throughout his 13-year career since then, he has regularly gotten manicures and pedicures.
Jokic is a little more rudimentary. When asked by The Post if he has ever scratched an opponent, he replied in his usual deadpan. “No, I take care of my nails. I bite them.”
“I got got”
if they’re injured, if they want to achieve something.”
Arguments against the rule largely depend on the arbitrary nature of the league’s chosen number. No data-driven evidence was provided to explain why 65 makes more sense as a games-played minimum than, say, 67 — one more than the number of games Embiid played last year when he won MVP. In 2022-23, Jokic finished second in voting with 69 games played. Giannis Antetokounmpo was third with 63.
With the door wide open now, Jokic’s biggest challenger for the 2023-24 crown is his All-star teammate, Oklahoma City’s
Shai Gilgeous-alexander.
The Thunder guard, who ranks second in the league in scoring (31.1 points) and first in steals (2.2), wasn’t as quick to condemn the rule as Jokic was.
“I’m not too sure. I think no matter what, there’s like a fine line,” Gilgeous-alexander said. “Like, when it comes down to it, there’s always a fine line in games played and availability. And I think the league has the right intention in trying to make that line a little bit bolder and easier to make a decision. Now, I try to be
Jokic’s wound was briefly treated by Denver’s training staff during a timeout, then he stayed on the court for the remaining seconds and even made the foul shots that finally clinched the win.
“I just take a shower,” Jokic said when asked if he does anything to sanitize his scars. Beyond the required medical treatments, there’s not much to it.
The one in Brooklyn was impossible to ignore, but sometimes scratches are subtle enough that they don’t cause a dilemma. Hence the frequency with which Jokic doesn’t even know how to explain how he got a certain scar.
“Those are the kind of things you may not notice in-game because of the adrenaline. But when you go to shower or whatever it is after, you feel a little sting,” Lopez said. “And you’re like, ‘Dang, what is that? I got got tonight.’ It happens. I have tons of little scars all over, just from different games. You absolutely accumulate them.”
“I mind it”
as available as I can every night, not only for that but just for the love of the game. But as far as how the rule goes, I don’t really have an opinion. I’m gonna try to be available for my team to win basketball games every night, and if I can’t be available, then I just can’t, and it is what it is.”
The last remark in Gilgeous-alexander’s answer operates as a rebuttal to Jokic’s point: Players can and should be responsible for their own decisionmaking when their health is involved, regardless of what a rule incentivizes.
Beyond the MVP layer of the debate, Indiana Allstar Tyrese Haliburton has said recently that he felt rushed to return from an injury this season because his eligibility to sign a supermax contract depends on him making an ALL-NBA team. Boston’s Jaylen Brown, who signed a supermax last offseason after making his first ALL-NBA team, suggested lowering the minimum to around 58 games.
“Honestly, I do believe that if you win any type of award, I think you should have to play a significant amount of the season,” Brown said Saturday. “… But maybe 65 games might be a little too severe, you know?” but so does his continuing lack of arm accessories. In 2019, he told ESPN he was planning to start wearing a sleeve the next season. He never did.
It’s not that Jokic doesn’t mind getting clawed at. “I mind it,” he told The Post. The superstar who presents such a ho-hum personality to the public is, in fact, always trying to gain a competitive edge. Be it against opponents or referees. Evidence matters.
“It’s part of the game,” Jokic said. “And I can complain to the refs, ‘Ah, look! It’s a scratch!’”