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One of the NBA‘s most controversial rules isn’t going away anytime soon according to commissioner Adam Silver.
Prior to the 2023-24 season, the league instituted a new rule that states players must play in at least 65 of the 82 regular season games to be award-eligible.
But the rule faced backlash due to the seemingly arbitrary number of games and the effects it has on future player salaries.
Players who are named to an All-NBA team are eligible for higher percentage max contract than those who are not. But if you play, say, 64 games, you cannot make an All-NBA team regardless of how well you played.
Adam Silver Says NBA Will Keep Rules Regarding Games Played
Despite this, and the plethora of injuries that affected the NBA players, Silver says the rule isn’t going anywhere.
“When it comes to injury data, we’re constantly studying it, trying to see if there’s more than correlation and there’s actually causation,” Silver said via Front Office Sports. “Of course, this past season, even though we had the 65-game rule, largely designed to keep star players on the floor, we had a decrease in injury in star players.
“I’m not standing here saying one followed from the other. It just may be happenstance for this season. I think we saw injuries, of course, in the playoffs this year, but nothing that out of range with injuries we’ve seen in the past.”
Silver said he believes the rule had its intended effect, and that it won’t be changing anytime soon.
“I will say just based on one season of data, we’re happy with the 65-game rule,” Silver said. “There was sort of a parade of horribles that had rolled out, that had been rolled out, that everybody was saying, were threatening were going to happen. Those things didn’t happen.
“In terms of not just a reduction in star player injuries this year, but it worked to the extent we saw star players on the floor more. That was the goal.”
Something tells us the NBAPA might have something to say about that prior to the next collective bargaining agreement.