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‘Stupid’ rule could cost Tyrese Haliburton money and Joel Embiid MVP; LeBron’s ‘ominous’ Lakers warning
‘Stupid’ rule could cost Tyrese Haliburton money and Joel Embiid MVP; LeBron’s ‘ominous’ Lakers warning
While the upcoming trade deadline is the primary focus in the NBA right now, there are a few debates bubbling away in the background — from new rules impacting the MVP race to whether the league needs to do anything to address a sudden surge in scoring.
Plus, just when it looked like things were starting to move in an upwards trajectory for LeBron James and the Lakers there has been more drama.
PACERS STAR COULD BE COUNTING THE $62M COST OF ‘STUPID’ RULE
The NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement is having “unintended consequences” already and it has Golden State Warriors big man Draymond Green claiming “bulls***”.
In case you missed it, when the NBA and player’s union agreed to the new agreement in April last year it also included a player participation policy which had a direct impact on eligibility for some of the league’s major end-of-year awards.
Most notably, it set a 65-game threshold for players to be eligible for MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and All-NBA honours. Players also needed to be on the court for a minimum of 20 minutes in all of those 65 games to be eligible.
The change was part of the league’s move to address concerns over load management, with NBA commissioner Adam Silver saying in June 2022 that the league wanted a “system where our best players are incentivised to be on the floor”.
In the case of reigning MVP and Philadelphia 76ers big man Joel Embiid, however, there is a debate as to whether the new system is incentivising players to be on the floor to their detriment.
‘Stupid’ rule could cost Tyrese Haliburton money and Joel Embiid MVP; LeBron’s ‘ominous’ Lakers warning
Embiid, having already been dealing with a lingering injury heading into Wednesday’s game against Golden State, went down in the final minutes of the game as Jonathan Kuminga fell directly onto his compromised knee.
Sixers writer Kyle Neubeck described it as “absolute stupidity all around”.
“You can’t say the Sixers could have predicted that specifically, but when a gigantic man is favouring one leg as a result of a knee injury, you are playing with fire,” he wrote.
“Hard to believe the guy who looked like a giraffe on ice skates ended up in a dangerous situation.”
Embiid is now undergoing an MRI and has already been ruled out of Philadelphia’s game against the Jazz on Friday, meaning he can only miss five more games before being made ineligible for postseason awards — including MVP.
That is despite Embiid having what former teammate JJ Redick described as “arguably the best season of his career” on his podcast in December last year.
The fact that Embiid played through his knee complaint on Wednesday says more about Philadelphia’s situation than his MVP case given the team was already without guard Tyrse Maxey and needed the superstar big man to be a chance against a desperate Golden State.
ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne said as much on ‘NBA Today’ but added that the 65-game MVP threshold had to also be a factor for Embiid, who now looks little chance of being eligible for the award.
“He’s not playing because of the 65 games but it’s always front and centre in that discussion. You can’t separate it,” Shelburne said.
“He’s playing because the Sixers need him. They need him out there to win… but 65 games is in your head because this is a guy who didn’t get Rookie of the Year when he certainly was the best rookie that year but he didn’t play enough games.
“He’s already lost one MVP where he probably didn’t play enough games and I think that affected his votes.”
Golden State’s Green was far more direct in his opinion on the matter, believing the NBA’s rule change was in a lot of ways forcing players to push through injuries.
“Joel playing tonight felt very much so because of the 65-game limit,” Green said on his podcast.
“What I think is actually quite bulls***, guys have faced those rules before but those same All-NBA teams, those same MVP awards, lists, Defensive Player of the Year, those lists are the same. I once lost a Defensive Player of the Year Award to Kawhi Leonard and I think he played 51 games.
“In turn, you get Joel who comes out there tonight and he forces it. The freak play with him and JK diving for the ball, but maybe it’s not as bad if the knee isn’t already banged up. I don’t really bang with it. Now we got one of our premier faces in this league, the MVP of our league, possibly hurt for an extended period of time because he’s forcing it.”
It is not just Embiid though. Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, who is enjoying a breakout season that saw him named a All-Star starter, described the rule as “stupid” earlier in the week.
In the case of Haliburton, he suffered a hamstring strain and now can only miss five more games before he too becomes ineligible for post-season awards — including All-NBA honours.
That would end up costing Haliburton $41 million ($A62m). How does that work?
Well, the Indiana guard signed a five-year max contract extension with the Pacers this past offseason which starts at 25 per cent of the 2024-25 salary cap if he doesn’t make an All-NBA team.
If he does, that figure rises to 30 per cent, which is equivalent to a $USD41 million difference.
“I think it’s a stupid rule, like plenty of the guys in the league,” Haliburton said to James Boyd of The Athletic.
Taking last year as a case study, five different players including Giannis Antetokounmpo would not have been eligible for All-NBA had these rules been in place.
ESPN personality Michael Wilbon said the league is facing a “real tough balancing act” given the move was meant to appeal to fans and sponsors growing frustrated with star players sitting out games.
Front officer insider Bobby Marks suggested having a tiered approach, although NBA executive vice president Joe Dumars indicated the league won’t be making any changes for next season.
“Any time you put something in there are going to be some unintended consequences,” he told Malika Andrews of ESPN.
“We knew that going in. We put the threshold in that you can miss up to 20 per cent of the season and still be eligible. But we always knew that there could be a situation where one of the players went past 20 per cent of the season who is having a good year. But you can’t not put that rule in because of the one or two guys that it may effect.
“There have been no discussions about that [a change].”
THE DIFFERENT SIDES OF NBA’S SCORING DEBATE
Earlier in the week it was Joel Embiid dropping 70 points and Karl-Anthony Towns scoring 62. Then it was 73 from Luka Doncic and 62 from Devin Booker.
Four historic individual performances that shone a spotlight on some of the most talented players in the NBA right now — and, potentially, one of the biggest issues in the league too?
READ: Shaq O’Neal has come again as he raises question whether Stephen Curry should be in…
That is what some of the leading voices in the NBA are trying to work out right now.
Are the kind of 50 and 60-point explosions that used to be crowning moments in steps towards superstardom now the new normal?
“I think there are absolute changes (to be made),” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said before the Warriors’ game against the Lakers, according to The Mercury News.
“You’re not going to make changes to the scheme. Where you’re going to make changes is with the defensive positioning rules that are in place.
“I wish I could tell you the number of times a player wildly drove into us, ran into us, and I went to the ref and the ref used the expression, ‘illegal guarding position.’
“The way we’re interpreting the rules is favouring the offence. Just as we did 20 years ago as a league, when we wanted to open up the game, we changed the interpretation. So we could easily go back and give leeway to the defence.”
It is not the first time Kerr has called out the state of NBA officiating, having previously described the league as a “parade to the free-throw line” after a loss to the Nuggets.
Crucially, Kerr wasn’t so much criticising the referees themselves as he was the rules themselves and how they influence the way officials interpret the game.
As John Hollinger pointed out in a comprehensive column for The Athletic, this is a multi-faceted issue that isn’t necessarily going to be solved by making just one change.
Funnily enough, there was a similar conversation happening in NBA circles around this time last year, when the average NBA team was scoring at a rate of nearly 114 points per 100 possessions — ranking the highest such mark in league history.
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A former Ferrari engineer has criticised the decision to bring in Lewis Hamilton and thinks the Brit’s presence will mean “a lot of potential for drama”.
At the age of 40, seven-time Formula 1 champion Hamilton will form a formidable driver partnership with Charles Leclerc. His big switch comes at the expense of Carlos Sainz, who has performed well for the Italian squad but who was axed so they had room for their blockbuster new signing.
But not everyone of a Ferrari persuasion is convinced that it will go well. Ernest Knoors, who spent many years as an engineer at Maranello, specialising in power units, worries that Hamilton’s presence could do more harm than good for a team that is finding its groove under Frederic Vasseur.
“A big name like Hamilton also brings a lot of politics and if politics within Ferrari are not managed well, then there is a lot of potential for drama,” he told Formule1.nl. “Hamilton has the tendency that if things do not work out, he turns his whole car upside down and starts experimenting.
“Ferrari believes very much in the big personalities and will follow him. But Hamilton is just someone you have to guide a little bit and not give the freedom to rebuild the whole car, because then it will go completely wrong. So I do not know if it is such a smart move, but of course it is nice for the sport.”
News of Hamilton’s planned move broke on February 1, coinciding with football’s Transfer Deadline Day. That the back pages of many newspapers were dominated by the decision of Hamilton to swap Mercedes for Ferrari was testament to the magnitude of the announcement.
Sainz was not surprised as he had been informed by his team of the plan ahead of it being made public. But the Spaniard responded well with two victories to date this season and five further appearances on the podium, on the way to what looks likely to be a fifth-placed finish in the championship – two spots and 54 points ahead of Hamilton.
Sainz has signed for Williams next year and, after several years of running at the front of the grid, will focus on his new challenge of helping restore one of the grid’s most historic teams to its former glory. But Knoors believes he should have been kept on by Ferrari instead.
The Dutchman added: “I see Lewis Hamilton’s arrival at Ferrari more as a PR move. With all due respect, Hamilton is not going to take that Ferrari from P6 to P1. He will get the most out of it, but what Ferrari has to do is make that car faster. And if you make that car faster, you can easily drive at the front with the current line-up.
“Besides, as a team you have to look further on the horizon. If Hamilton becomes champion in the coming years, he and Ferrari will become immortal. But if you want to build a team with talent for the next five years, are you going to build on Hamilton? No, because he will really be finished after two or three years. That is why I would have kept the very strong line-up that Ferrari has now.”
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Chase Elliott had a front-row seat for one of NASCAR’s most bizarre moments of the 2024 Cup Series season. At the start of Stage 2, the pace car dove onto pit road in front of Elliott; however, it was a tad too late. The pace car made contact with the sand barrels at the entry of pit road and caused a red flag for cleanup.
Initially, there was some speculation on the NBC Sports broadcast, even from the No. 9 team, that Elliott made contact with the pace car. Fortunately, the pace car didn’t slide across the No. 9 car’s nose, but it undoubtedly provided one of NASCAR’s craziest red flag moments in recent memory.
Below, you can listen to Elliott and the No. 9 team react to the pace car crashing into the sand barrels on pit road at Phoenix during Championship Weekend!
Reflecting on the recent retirement of 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr., Earnhardt didn’t mince words about the toll NASCAR takes on its drivers. Speaking candidly, the two-time Daytona 500 winner admitted that the pressure to perform every week left him feeling miserable for most of his racing career—a sentiment he believes is shared by many of his peers.
“Right or wrong, racing made me a miserable person 90% of the time,” Earnhardt confessed. “And him too. I mean, ask Kyle Busch, ask anybody—unless you’re winning, you’re not happy.”
For these elite drivers, the sport is a relentless grind. A podium finish might bring temporary relief, but anything short of victory is often a source of frustration. The immense effort poured into preparation and execution rarely feels like it pays off unless the checkered flag is theirs.
Earnhardt highlighted the mental toll of falling short, explaining how the relentless focus on winning can overshadow the joy of simply competing. Even a solid performance feels hollow compared to the euphoria of a win.
“Unless you’re winning, you’re not happy at all,” he said. “You’re okay with a good run, but for the most part, all the effort it takes just to run good—it doesn’t weigh out.”
For drivers, the stakes are sky-high every week. Sponsors, fans, and teams demand nothing less than excellence, leaving little room for error or personal satisfaction in anything less than a dominant performance.
Earnhardt also shared insights into his friendship with Martin Truex Jr., who recently announced his retirement. While the two often spend time hunting together during NASCAR’s off-season, Earnhardt noted that the stress of racing even creeps into their leisure activities.
“When I’m with him during hunting season, it’s always in the back of his mind,” Earnhardt said. “It’s that stressful part of the year when he’s as miserable as he’s going to be.”
Now, with Truex stepping away from the track, Earnhardt looks forward to seeing a lighter, happier version of his long-time friend. Without the weight of weekly competition hanging over him, Truex might finally be able to relax and enjoy the outdoor lifestyle he cherishes.
“It’ll be fun to see him loosen up,” Earnhardt added.
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