Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz are joined by NBA contributing writer Tom Haberstroh to react to Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Dončić’s latest injury and explain why the NBA should consider changes to the amount of games in a season and minimum game requirement for awards. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV.
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Video Transcript
I wonder how much of the 65 game rule was at play here.
He was suspended in the last game for his 16th tech-technical.
His next game would be his 65th game, and so he, I think, wanted to make sure that he would lock that in.
and he was hobbled throughout the game, and this is kind of the worry, is that these guys are pushing hard to get that, that eligibility for All-NBA.
If he did not play in this game and the next game or the rest of the season, he would be at risk of not being eligible for All-NBA or the MVP conversation.
And so a lot of guys at this stage of the season are trying to fight through injuries and still be eligible for the award.
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And now we see it backfired in a big way, ’cause now it looks like Luka Doni, there’s a possibility he misses the rest of the regular season.
And you’re seeing Anthony Edwards disqualified after last night’s, illness/knee injury that hel-held him out of the game.
Cade Cunningham in jeopardy of missing, the All-NBA team because of his collapsed lung a-as we go down to the stretch.
I just think this is a moral hazard for the NBA to have these teams, these coaches, these medical staffs balancing all the different variables, and one of them I think is unnecessary is the 65 game rule.
At this point, Luka Doni is not gonna be eligible, and you wonder how much of the calculus in him being hobbled and playing down the stretch had something to do with that.
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What would you do to curb, load management to make sure that you’re seeing your stars out on the court far more often than not?
How would you address this if you were in charge?
Cut down the games on the schedule.
Make it 58 games.
I know that sounds radical, but you know what it’s radical?
Is that 33% of national TV games are fully staffed by the stars in those national TV games.
We are seeing more than not– often than not players who are missing.
We saw last night on Amazon Prime, no Cade Cunningham, we knew that going into the game, and then a late scratch for Anthony Edwards in a game in which he is now disqualified from All-NBA.
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And I think the, the, the, the calculus for the NBA is to understand the long-term cost of having these fans watching these games that don’t feel big.
Because, yes, they are on national TV, they’re on Amazon Prime, on NBC, but time and time again, it is very clear that the NBA season is too long.
And if guys are fi- are fighting through injuries just to get to the postseason, you are actually at risk for long-term injury.
We saw Tyrese Haliburton, Jayson Tatum, and Damian Lillard deal with injuries and fight through them in the postseason and then tear their Achilles.
I think everybody, all the stakeholders, the owners, the players, the league office, and the TV partners need to come together and come to their senses that 82 games made sense when we had to fill seats back in the ’50s and ’60s.
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That– Playing that many games to fill the gate revenue when there were no national TV contracts, there were no local TV contracts.
But now the economics have changed, and I do think that the injury risk with the game being so fast, we have to stop putting our heads in the sand and realize this is not working.
And I don’t think this is a load management issue.
I think this has been, miscast as a load management, guys are resting in these games.
No, their bodies can’t withstand the rigors of the NBA season.
The game is way too ballistic, way too, high velocity, and too much torque on these joints and these muscles that it’s way different than it was when we were growing up, guys.
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And I think the NBA and the league partners and the players need to seriously look at overhauling the system and making sure that long-term, the next generation of stars, we’re not seeing them miss 40 games a year.