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Pistons guard Cade Cunningham, left, brings the ball up court against Milwaukee Bucks guard Gary Harris during the first half on April 8 in Detroit. (AP photo)<\/p>\n
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The Detroit Pistons\u2019 Cade Cunningham and Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 Luka Don\u010di\u0107 will be eligible for awards such as MVP and All-NBA this season despite falling short of the 65-game minimum, the league and the National Basketball Players Association said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Cunningham played in 63 games and Don\u010di\u0107 in 64. But the league and the union both agreed that each should be on the ballot based on the \u201cextraordinary circumstances provision\u201d in the collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n
Cunningham missed 12 games as a result of a collapsed lung that was diagnosed on March 17. Don\u010di\u0107 \u2014 who is one of the favorites to contend for MVP honors after winning the league\u2019s scoring title \u2014 missed two games to attend the birth of his daughter in Slovenia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NBA and NBPA agreed that, taking into account the totality of the circumstances for Cunningham and Don\u010di\u0107, each player qualified for awards,\u201d the league and the union said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Don\u010di\u0107, in a statement posted to social media, said he is \u201cgrateful to the NBPA for advocating on my behalf and to the NBA for their fair decision,\u201d adding that it was important to him \u201cto be present for the birth of my daughter in December.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis season has been so special to me because of what my teammates and I have been able to accomplish, and I am honored to have the opportunity to be considered for the league\u2019s end-of-season awards,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Minnesota\u2019s Anthony Edwards, who played in 60 qualified games, also tried to get on the awards ballot through the extraordinary circumstances challenge \u2014 but sought his approval before an independent arbitrator. His challenge was denied.<\/p>\n
Timberwolves coach Chris Finch \u2014 noting that Edwards doesn\u2019t get held out to rest \u2014 was not pleased about that and said he\u2019d like an explanation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure why we have a rule if we have an appeal process that is overturned in two-thirds of the cases that were held before,\u201d Finch said. \u201cFeels more like a suggestion than a rule.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statuses of Don\u010di\u0107 and Cunningham were a major topic toward the end of the season. San Antonio\u2019s Victor Wembanyama \u2014 an MVP candidate and the likely defensive player of the year \u2014 got to the 65-game mark in the Spurs\u2019 next-to-last game, and Denver\u2019s three-time MVP Nikola Jokic became qualified for this year\u2019s awards on the final day of the regular season. Jokic has been first or second in MVP balloting in each of the last five seasons and won the league\u2019s rebounding and assist titles this season.<\/p>\n
And the union \u2014 which worked with the league to come up with the 65-game policy \u2014 has said it wants the rule changed, saying it was put into place to address load management and not to keep deserving players from awards. That said, many players have spoken out in favor of the rule.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pistons guard Cade Cunningham, left, brings the ball up court against Milwaukee Bucks guard Gary Harris during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,296,188,3860,3031,6,88813,88811,88812,297],"class_list":{"0":"post-712070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-pistons","11":"tag-detroitpistons","12":"tag-michigan-sports","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nba-awards-eligibility-restored-for-pistons-cunningham","15":"tag-nba-awards-eligibility-restored-for-pistons-cunninghamnational-sports","16":"tag-nba-awards-eligibility-restored-for-pistons-cunninghamsports","17":"tag-pistons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116416957789710821","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}