(Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
As part of the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in the NBA, players in the league won’t be eligible for regular-season awards like MVP and Defensive Player of the Year if they don’t play at least 65 games.
Over the past few years, star players around the league have been randomly sitting out of games, making it difficult for fans to know when they’ll see those players in games they pay their hard-earned money to see.
As a result, the NBA made sure this rule was put in place to urge players to play more games, which will likely have an impact as regular-season awards can help these players make more money in contract negotiations while also adding to their legacies.
Chris “Mad Dog” Russo recently made an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show to talk about the new rule in the agreed-upon CBA and how he’s all for the change.
“You can’t play 65 games in a season? To me it’s a joke. That’s 20% of the season you miss if you don’t play 65 games… I mean is that asking too much?”
–@MadDogUnleashed reacts to minimum number of games to win an #NBA award
Full interview: https://t.co/ZR5oBc96JA pic.twitter.com/YqniIfGHmW
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) April 6, 2023
With some players in the league making upwards of $40 million or more per season, it’s not too much to ask them to play as many games as possible in an 82-game campaign.
The average salary in the NBA is nearly $10 million ($9.6), which is incredible and all the more reason for players to be available to play as much as possible, especially with how expensive game tickets can be.
It’ll be interesting to see how this new rule impacts things moving forward and if players start to go out of their way to play more rather than sit out when they know they can perform on the basketball floor.
The post Chris Russo Reacts To NBA’s New Minimum Games Rule For Awards appeared first on The Cold Wire.