Some transparency: I planned to vote for Derrick Jones Jr. for All-NBA 2nd team defense. He played 76 games, started 66, so I was surprised he wasn’t listed as eligible in that category.
Here’s why: Players are required to play 62 games of at least 20 minutes. Jones played 48 such games. He had 10 other games where he played between 18 minutes and 19:58. He had 4 more of between 16:46 and 18.
Rules are rules, and I don’t think Jones missed out on a bunch of votes, but he missed out on mine, FWIW.
[https://twitter.com/townbrad/status/1780329335708148168](https://twitter.com/townbrad/status/1780329335708148168)
by botebote77
4 Comments
DJJ is prolly not deserving of that if everything is taken into account, but making minute thresholds for awards accessible to roleplayers as well is a mistake. Afaik, only MVP/All-NBA/DPoY are tied to max contract eligibility so they should just impose the minute threshold on those.
I think minutes treshold make sense to avoid someone starting, playing just 1 minute, then going to the bench for the rest of the game. That’s not how you’re supposed to reach 65 games.
BUT I think if you play enough games, like 70+ total, you should also qualify if you played enough minutes total. DJJ played on average 23.5 minutes per game, so I think it would still make sense if he qualified.
They should use total minutes played in the season. That seems to be much fairer. If you’re blowing out a team no need to keep playing for award eligibility. But if you play high minutes other nights that should count for something.
Some players are defensive juggernut but won’t make it either. Jonathan Isaac is one of the best defenders in NBA, but he plays not enough games for example.