Would NBA Players Give Up Guaranteed Salaries in Exchange for Amending the Player Participation Policy?
Prior to this season, the NBA instituted a Player Participation Policy that stipulates--among other things--that any player who fails to play in at least 65 out of 82 regular season games is ineligible for several major awards, including regular season MVP. Joel Embiid has already missed 13 games this season, and now that he has reportedly suffered a lateral meniscus injury it is almost certain that he will not meet the 65 games played threshold. Some media members and some NBA players have complained that in light of his high level play this season--including a 70 point game and a league-leading 35.3 ppg scoring average--it is not fair for Embiid to be automatically disqualified from MVP consideration.
Missing a lot of games is not an aberration for Embiid, an injury-prone player who sat out every game of his first two NBA seasons. He played 31 games in his third season, 2016-17, and since that time he has played at least 65 games in a season just twice (66 in 2022-23, 68 in 2021-22). Embiid is not only frequently unavailable during the regular season, but he often disappears during the playoffs: his playoff numbers for scoring, rebounding, and field goal percentage are all significantly lower than his regular season numbers, he has never won a second round series, and he has an 0-3 game seven record. Embiid has only won one series that went past five games, which indicates that (1) he only wins in the playoffs when his team is markedly superior to the opposing team, and (2) he tends to wear down over the course of a series.
Embiid won the regular season MVP last season, but is the above resume an MVP resume overall? There is no disputing that Embiid is a very talented player, but is he an MVP-level all-time great player? Put another way, should an MVP be expected to play more than 65 regular season games per year and deliver more in the playoffs than a bunch of second round losses?
The Philadelphia 76ers obtained Embiid's draft rights by tanking, and they most assuredly have not tanked to the top. Tanking and load management are two sides of the same counterfeit coin, because both practices minimize the value of winning regular season games. The NBA was much better when tanking and load management did not exist, and when players like Julius Erving and Moses Malone took pride in playing every game: "From 1967-82, the NBA regular season MVP played in 81 or 82 games every year except for 1978, when 1977 NBA Finals MVP Bill Walton captured the regular season MVP despite being limited to 58 games due to injuries--and Walton was not 'load managing': he was legitimately injured. Erving won four regular season MVPs during his ABA/NBA career; in those MVP seasons, he played in 84, 84, 84, and 82 games (the ABA regular season lasted 84 games). Malone won three regular season MVPs during his ABA/NBA career; in those MVP seasons, he played in 82, 81, and 78 games."
Bill Walton's regular season MVP in a 58 game season is an aberration, and Embiid is not Bill Walton. Embiid has never led a team to the Eastern Conference Finals--let alone an NBA title--and there is no indication that he will ever be durable enough to avoid wearing down or getting injured before or during the playoffs. Think about that: Bill Walton--the poster child for injury-prone players--proved to be more durable when it matters most than Embiid has been up to this point in his 10 year NBA career. By traditional standards, Embiid has never had an MVP-caliber season.
With the Player Participation Policy in place, NBA fans are now seeing star players on the court--as opposed to sipping wine on the sidelines--more often than has been the case for the past several years. The NBA should not reverse this positive trend. Most working people are either paid based on showing up for work every day (i.e., paid by the hour) or based on performance; few people have salaries that are guaranteed regardless of their attendance or performance. If NBA players want to be eligible for postseason awards--and for contractual bonuses connected to those awards--then there is a simple solution that does not involve amending the Player Participation Policy: eliminate guaranteed contracts, and transition to paying each player per game played: Don't play, don't get paid. Under those rules, if players want to miss more than 17 game checks and hope that the award voters will still select them for MVP or the All-NBA Team, go for it.
I am not "blaming" Embiid or anyone else for being legitimately injured (there is no indication that Embiid is load managing). My two-fold point is (1) By definition the regular season MVP is (or should be) a player who plays at a very high level while missing very few games, and (2) players should not expect to both receive guaranteed paychecks despite missing a large number of games and be eligible for major awards: something has to give--either give up the guaranteed money, or accept that it is fair to expect major award winners to both stay healthy and not engage in load management.
Labels: Bill Walton, Joel Embiid, Julius Erving, load management, Moses Malone, Philadelphia 76ers, tanking
posted by David Friedman @ 12:28 AM
5 Comments:
The players giving up guaranteed salaries for any reason? I think not. The NBPA will get the participation policy removed or at least drastically altered in their favor before that happens. I felt awful for Embiid watching him writhe around in severe pain after Kuminga accidentally landed on his knee but Embiid will probably play under 60 games this season and will rightfully not qualify for a variety of regular season awards. The 65-game requirement is completely reasonable and appears to be having a positive impact on player participation so hopefully the league won’t let the NBPA twist their arm into severely altering or flat-out getting rid of it.
Michael:
I don't expect the players to agree to give up guaranteed salaries. I am just stating what my response would be if I represented the league office in collective bargaining negotiations and the players griped about the Player Participation Policy.
The contractual bonuses for winning the MVP or making the All-NBA Team are weird for a couple reasons:
(1) This gives media members direct control over how much money players earn. Media members should be objectively covering the sport, not determining how the players are compensated.
(2): Such bonuses have the potential for all kinds of shenanigans, including but not limited to a player playing just a few minutes in a game to surpass the 65 game threshold, and a team/coach/player/media member acting in a way that affects wagering. There are many kinds of wagers based on who wins various awards, but who wins can be greatly impacted by whether a team sits a player, whether a player decides to sit, and whether a media member's vote is influenced by something other than pure skill set evaluation (which many media members are not qualified to do anyway, but that is another story).
The NFL does not permit certain kinds of incentive bonuses, and I think that the NBA should get rid of many of these incentive bonuses as well. Players should not expect or need extra money to play hard and play well.
Players shouldn't need incentive bonuses, but it obviously helps them playing more often and playing harder. It'd be no different in any sport. The NFL isn't special in this regard. The NFL is more physical than the NHL, NBA, or MLB naturally, but the NFL is by far the least grinding of all the sports. Many NFL players could play with a broken hand/arm depending on their position. This can't happen in the other major sports. One little tweak can sideline an NBA player for several days or more.
It seems silly to put a game minimum to win MVP or other awards and it is. But, it's kinda come down to this being necessary to enhance the product. But, as I keep saying the NBA is making loads of money any way it puts forth its product, but obviously they're trying to maximize their profits and that's basically all the NBA is concerned about. Embiid, no matter how great his season is, wouldn't win MVP playing less than 60 games regardless of the 65-game minimum rule. He'll probably end up playing less than 50 games now, if that.
I just did the math and 65 games out of the full 82-game season amounts to 79.26%. Perhaps the NBA has taken Woody Allen's quip to heart:
"Showing up is 80% of life."
Words to live by. And so, if you're gonna be named the Most Valuable Player of our league, the very least you can do is SHOW UP to work, if not every day, at least 79.26% of the time! Makes sense to me.
Anonymous:
As noted in my article and in this Comments section, it is almost unheard of to win the MVP without playing in at least 65 games; that renders meaningless the complaints about 65 games being mandatory, because the 65 game standard has been subjectively understood by the voters for decades. What the NBA did by making this a formal rule is avoid a situation in which every leading candidate missed more than 17 games; that had never happened before, but we were starting to head in that direction, and no one knows what the voters might have done. Now, if every candidate is injured or load manages for more than 20% of the season, the voters will be compelled to pick the best of the candidates who played at least 80% of the season.
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