After winning the award for best player of last season in the
NBA
, above stars like Nikola Jokic, all signs pointed to
Joel Embiid
being chosen again with the most important individual award of the current campaign.
However, the new collective agreement published by the league has a rule that can put the
Philadelphia 76ers
center in check and forever change the fights between contenders for the
MVP
award
: to achieve it, it is
mandatory to play at least 65 of the 82
regular phase
matches .
Therefore, each player can be
absent in a maximum of 17 matches
- which represents a minimum of 80 percent presence - if they wish to fight for the individual prizes that are awarded at the end of the competition.
It is a challenge for Embiid to meet, despite being the most likely to win the award again.
The thing is that the 29-year-old Cameroonian, like other great figures, is not characterized by having the highest shooting of all.
In the 37 games that have been played this season,
the 76ers star has already been absent in 12 of them
.
Therefore, you can only miss a maximum of five matches of the remaining 45.
A difficult statistic to meet if you take into account that Embiid, in the eight years he has been in the NBA, has only twice managed to exceed 65 duels played in the same campaign: in 2022 and 2023.
Even during Wednesday's loss to the Golden State Warriors (119-107),
the center set off alarm bells
and worried all of Philadelphia when
he left the court injured in his left knee during the fourth quarter
.
And depending on how many games he has to miss during his recovery, he may leave his MVP aspirations hanging in the balance.
Embiid has his chances of repeating the MVP hanging in the balance.
Photo: AP/D.
Ross Cameron.
There is good news and that is that the objective of winning the award again depends solely on Embiid himself: his health and continuous filming are the factors that must accompany him until the end of the season, which will be in April.
However, after the duel against the Warriors, he made it clear that he does not have in mind demanding his body.
"It doesn't matter how many games I play; the goal is to be healthy the rest of the year. I have already won the MVP. If I have the opportunity to get the second, I will do it, but I am not going to force or pressure my body to achieve it
," he declared. the Cameroonian after dropping to fifth position in the Eastern conference.
Watch the video again.
WHY DOES KUMINGA RANDOMLY DIVE ON EMBIID'S LEG???
JUST PICK UP THE BALL
Dirty as fuck pic.twitter.com/9sFhTZHrYB
— Broad STweet 🔔🦅 (@Broad_STweet) January 31, 2024
Beyond maintaining a
67 percent presence so far this season
, the difference that Embiid makes on the court still catapults him as the top candidate to be the best player of the season.
The statistics support it: adding the NBA Cup matches, in the 33 games that the center was present, 26 ended in victory in his favor.
While in the 12 where he did not participate, the 76ers only won three times.
Furthermore, individual numbers are the other facet that leaves the Cameroonian at the top:
he averages 36 points and 56.5% effective shooting, along with 11.4 rebounds and 5.8 assists
.
However, taking into account his current pace of competition, it is estimated that Embiid will reach a maximum of 60 games played this season, a number that puts him out of the fight for the MVP.
In that sense, it is how the rest of the candidates for the award are excited about keeping it.
Among them is
Nikola Jokic
, who also has a certain risk because he missed a total of seven games.
Given this question,
why do top figures miss a high number of games?
It is due to Load Management
, a program used by NBA franchises in which they decide to protect their star players in several games to avoid the physical and mental overload that they may suffer from playing 82 games in six months (from October to April ).
The exact moment of Embiid's injury that set off the alarms in Philadelphia.
Photo: AP/D.
Ross Cameron.
Precisely that regulation is what the American league seeks to put aside.
Taking into account that the NBA, while thinking about sport, also thinks about entertainment, it is not fruitful for its top figures to miss high numbers of games per season.
Given the 65-match regulations, there are several prominent players who are committed
if they want to have a chance to compete for any of the individual awards, starting with examples such as Jimmy Butler, Donovan Mitchell and Kyrie Irving, who is already one of the first victims of the rule.
That path is the one that Embiid also seems to be following, while he waits to learn the severity of his injury.
The doors are open to a possible surprise in the MVP award, although everything will end up depending on the filming that the Cameroonian achieves in April, a level of participation that the Philadelphia 76ers aspire to be as high as possible.