65 games, 65 games, 65 games — that is what Adam Silver and the NBA have been preaching for years in a supposed effort to contain load management. 2025-26 has been a peak campaign for exposing just how dumb the initiative of having that exact threshold was.
"We also have to remember that to the extent that one player is no longer eligible, some other player will then be All-NBA and will slot into that spot," Silver said. "So I’m not ready to stand here saying I don’t think it’s working. I think it is working.”
That response came to combat Cade Cunningham and the plea from the NBPA to abolish the rule. Well, it's not just Cade anymore. Anthony Edwards is set to miss the All-NBA Teams. After the last-minute hamstring injury for Luka Doncic, he might too.
64 games. Doncic came up exactly one short of hitting the arbitrary mark that has been under heavy scrutiny all season. The only way to overcome that is filing a grievance, which Luka's reps have indicated will be the plan.
"We intend to apply for an 'Extraordinary Circumstances Challenge' to the 65-game rule," Bill Duffy told Shams Charania.
"There is at least a path where [Luka Doncic] could be eligible to be on MVP ballots."@TimBontemps says Luka Doncic can still be eligible for MVP by filing an extraordinary circumstances grievance, regardless of the NBA's 65-game rule. pic.twitter.com/JWU7VJlXNB
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 3, 2026
NBA should acknowledge their failure and get rid of the 65-game rule
Sometimes, you just have to read the writing on the wall. For the NBA commissioner, this is his moment to do just that.
Someone at home will surely be sitting there and think that if this is specifically a Doncic problem, why don't the Los Angeles Lakers just play him for 10 seconds in an upcoming game and pull him immediately? That would get him to meet the requirements, right? Wrong.
Doncic would need to play at least 20 minutes in that contest. That is something the Lakers would certainly not permit after letting him play through the hamstring injury got him to the problem at hand in the first place.
With regard to the 65-game rule, players can only come up short of 20 minutes twice and still have that count toward the minimum. Doncic only played 16 minutes against the Philadelphia 76ers earlier this year, and just 19 against the Los Angeles Clippers in a previous matchup too.
Even if that were not the case, Luka would still need to log at least 15 minutes for the game to count. Again, there should be zero interest in that.
That brings it all back to one game. One game is the separator between Doncic having finished on the All-NBA First Team and being left off all three squads entirely. Dumb? Dumb.
Bringing this back to Cunningham and Edwards, both of those players should have gotten spots locked up on All-NBA Teams too, even with the missed time. People understand context. The rule prevents that from being exercised.
And sure, to Silver's point, someone will come in and take the spots in place of these three. Eventually, what will remain is a very watered down version of the All-NBA Teams that do not accurately represent the best players from that season.
At that point, it's really a decision between getting rid of an obsolete rule or having the All-NBA Teams feel that way. The choice should be obvious.