Bruce Brown played every single game this season. All 82. Not a night off. Not a maintenance day. Not a bum ankle that conveniently flared up on a back-to-back in Milwaukee in January. Every game, every night, for the entire regular season — the one thing the NBA said they wanted from their players when they created the 65-game rule in the first place.

And yet, under the actual language of that rule, Bruce Brown isn't eligible for a single postseason award. How does that even make sense?

It comes down to this: he's a bench player who didn't hit 20 minutes in enough of those 82 games. The rule requires 20 minutes in 63 contests, and Brown — whose job is to give you 15 or 18 minutes off the bench, do the dirty work, and never complain about it — fell just short of that mark. So the most available player on the Denver Nuggets, the only one who showed up all 82 nights, somehow doesn't meet the 65-game threshold.

That shouldn’t be possible.

And when you zoom out to the rest of the league this season, it becomes crystal clear that this rule has drifted far from what it was intended to be. Brown isn’t some weird one-off or a small technicality; he's just the clearest example. This season has produced the most head-scratching stretch of award-eligibility math since the rule was introduced — and the list of names it’s knocked off the ballot reads like a who’s who of the league’s best players.

At this point, the All-Ineligible team might have a real case to be better than whatever the actual All-NBA team ends up looking like.

Somewhere Along the Way, This Got Twisted

Think back to November 2012. Gregg Popovich sends four starters home before a nationally televised game in Miami, and the league hits the Spurs with a $250,000 fine. That was the moment this whole conversation really took off — teams resting perfectly healthy stars, especially on the road or in back-to-backs, no matter the stakes or who bought a ticket to be there.

Fast forward to the early 2020s, and the league had a real problem on their hands. Fans were paying to see stars, either in the building or on League Pass, and getting lineups full of names they didn't know instead. "Load management" became the catch-all explanation, and it started to wear thin. The product took a hit. And TV partners weren’t exactly thrilled watching marquee games without the marquee players.

So when the 2023 CBA came together, this was one of the big levers: if you want to be eligible for the major awards — MVP, DPOY, MIP, All-NBA, All-Defense — you’ve got to play. At least 65 games, with 20 minutes in 63 of them. You get two lighter-minute exceptions at 15, but that’s it. Fall short, and you’re off the ballot, no matter how good you were when you did play.

On the surface, it’s easy to see the logic. Tie awards to availability, and teams think twice before sitting stars for convenience. And to be fair, it did quiet some of the noise around load management. Guys were out there more often.

But the rule was built to punish teams deciding to sit healthy players. It wasn’t built for collapsed lungs, hamstring strains, knee inflammation, that stuff you don’t get to plan around.

This Season's Casualty List Is Genuinely Staggering

Just walk through the names for a second — that’s really all it takes.

Cade Cunningham was the story of the season. Detroit sitting at the top of the East, Cade running the whole thing, flirting with 24 and 10 every night — that’s real MVP-level production, not just hype. He was cruising toward an All-NBA spot. Then March 17th hits, he dives for a loose ball against Washington, and suddenly it’s a collapsed lung. That was it. Only 61 games played.

His agent, Jeff Schwartz, didn’t dance around it:

Cade has delivered a first-team All-NBA season. If he falls just short of an arbitrary games-played threshold due to legitimate injury, it should not disqualify him from recognition he has clearly earned over the course of the season.

And the NBPA backed it up right away:

Cade Cunningham's potential ineligibility for postseason awards after a career-defining season is a clear indictment of the 65-game rule and yet another example of why it must be abolished or reformed to create an exception for significant injuries.

Then you’ve got Luka Doncic. Led the league in scoring at 33.5 a night, and was starting to build a real late push in the MVP race. He ends up at 64 games — one short. A Grade 2 hamstring strain in OKC shuts him down, and just like that, he’s basically out of the awards picture.

Now, because two of those missed games were due to him flying home for the birth of his daughter, he's allowed to — and is — appealing his ineligibility. That’s not load management. That’s life.

Anthony Edwards? Arguably the best regular season of his career, 28.8 per game, right in line for another All-NBA nod. He finishes at 61 games after dealing with knee issues and an illness late. And this isn’t just about recognition — that missed selection has real money attached to it. We’re talking supermax implications, tens of millions potentially off the table because he got sick.

Devin Booker falls right into that same bucket. Another year where you don’t even really think twice about him being in the All-NBA mix — 26 a night, playmaking, carrying a heavy load for Phoenix. Just a really strong, steady Booker season. And he’s out too.

Even LeBron. Twenty-one straight All-NBA selections, just absurd consistency, snapped. Not because he fell off a cliff, but because he missed 18 games. He probably wasn’t pushing first team, sure, but second team? That was absolutely still on the table for him, if it wasn't for this rule. 

That Team Would Win a Lot of Games

Here’s the part that should probably make the league a little uncomfortable: if you just lined up the best players who got knocked out by this rule, that group is going to look better than what ends up on All-NBA second team.

Just think about the names for a second.

Doncic putting up 33.5, 8 and 7 like it’s routine. Cunningham basically running the No. 1 seed in the East while flirting with 24 and 10. Edwards giving you nearly 29 a night and doing it on both ends. Booker doing what Booker always does. LeBron still being LeBron in year 21.

That’s not some hypothetical “what if” group — that’s real production that just got wiped off the board.

And it gets even worse when you factor in how close Wembanyama came to being on that list. Wembanyama literally played through bruised ribs in a meaningless late-season game just to hit the 65 mark. He said it himself — if he already had 65, he wouldn’t have played.

If he doesn’t hit that number, now you’re having a real conversation about whether the ineligible team is actually better than the one voters are allowed to pick from.

Because in that world, the “eligible” version probably looks something like:

• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

• Nikola Jokic

• Jaylen Brown

• Kawhi Leonard

• Donovan Mitchell

Which is obviously a great group. 

But then you look at the other side:

• Victor Wembanyama

• Luka Doncic

• Cade Cunningham

• Anthony Edwards

• and either LeBron or Booker — honestly, take your pick

That’s not supposed to be close. That’s the whole point of All-NBA — it’s not meant to be a debate between two separate pools of players.

And if we’re getting to the point where that’s a real discussion, and the powers that be at the league office still don't think it's time for a change... then I'm not sure they ever will.

Bruce Brown Is the Perfect Villain for This Story

Come back to Bruce Brown for a second, because it's genuinely the most absurd data point of the whole mess.

Denver was juggling injuries all year. Murray in and out. Jokic dealing with a wrist. Lineups changing every other night. And the one guy who just kept showing up — every game, no drama, no injury report, no excuses — is somehow the one the rule says didn’t play enough to qualify for anything.

And look, nobody’s arguing Bruce Brown should be First Team All-NBA. He probably wouldn't have been up for any of the awards, but that’s not the point. If the rule can’t even handle a case this straightforward, what is it actually doing?

Adam Silver Says It's Working. Does He Mean That?

When the NBPA released their statement about Cunningham's situation, Adam Silver's response was measured and firm.

I'm not ready to say it's not working. I think it is working.

He's not entirely wrong. Load management as a headline issue has quieted down compared to its peak. Players are showing up more. The rule did something in that regard.

But Silver also added this: "We always knew when there's a line you draw, that somebody's going to fall on the other side of that line."

That's the part that's hard to accept. Because this season, it wasn't one person who fell on the other side of the line. It was the scoring champion. It was a top-five MVP candidate. It was a guy with a collapsed lung. It was the player who played all 82 games. The people on the wrong side of the line this year aren't edge cases or borderline situations.

It’s Not Just Awards — It’s Paychecks

If this thing does get changed — or scrapped entirely — it’s probably going to be because this rule isn't just about trophies. It’s about money.

Anthony Edwards already had two All-NBA selections. One more this year, and he’s eligible for a supermax on his next deal. Instead, he falls short of 65 games because of injury, and that door never even opens. We’re talking roughly $50 million that he doesn’t even get the chance to negotiate for now.

Tyrese Haliburton talked openly about how he's been affected:

I was the first year of this rule coming into play. I don’t know if you guys remember, I hurt my hamstring that year, and I was fighting to make All-NBA to get a supermax contract. So I was one of the first guys kind of affected by this, and at the time I said, ‘I think this is a dumb rule.’ I had a meeting with Commissioner Silver. We talked about it, and I think I understand from the league’s perspective how we’re trying to get players to play. At the end of the day, guys want to play. I don’t think guys want to miss games. But I think this is a rule that will get adjusted going into next year because there’s been so much conversation around it... I think my contract at the time went like, if I was on a regular max it was like 210 [million]. If I was supermax, it was 250 [million].

That’s where the rule really starts to feel backwards. It’s not keeping guys healthier — it’s pressuring them into coming back sooner than they probably should. And that’s how you turn something manageable into something worse.

Twenty years from now, when people look back at these All-NBA teams, they’re going to see a list that’s missing the scoring leader, the best player on the best team in the East, and one of the best two-way guards in the league. That stuff shapes how seasons — and careers — get remembered.

This Is Getting Fixed — One Way or Another

Silver’s not wrong that the rule nudged some of the behavior the league wanted. But “it worked a little” isn’t the same thing as “it’s working.” If your smoke detector goes off every time someone makes toast, it’s not doing its job — even if it can still catch a real fire.

And that’s where this version of the 65-game rule is right now. The money tied to it, Wembanyama pushing through bruised ribs just to hit a number, Bruce Brown playing all 82 and still being ineligible — it all points the same direction.

At this point, just scrap it and let voters do what they’ve always done: weigh performance and availability together. If load management becomes a problem again, fine the teams. The league already does that. And honestly, teams were gaming things this year too — just in a different way, managing minutes for losses instead of health. Treat it all the same. If it keeps happening, raise the fines until it stops.

Silver’s smart enough to know the difference between a rule that helps and a rule that starts creating new problems. This season gave the league more than enough evidence. Now it’s on them to actually do something about it.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com.

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