Some potential financial implications for some guys (Murray, Bam, Fox, and Halliburton) if they don't get to 65 games here:
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/39318248/nba-65-game-rule-affect-mvp-race-supermax-deals.
Also, I didn't know there was a way for players who fall short to challenge the consequences.
FOR PLAYERS WHO fall short of the 65-game threshold, there are procedures in place to attempt to regain eligibility for awards.
The pathway to achieving that, however, is a narrow one.
Once a player has officially fallen short of being able to reach 65 games played, the rule states they'll have two days to file a grievance. An arbitration hearing between the player, team, league and players' union will follow.
To file a grievance, a player must have clear and convincing evidence that the team limited the minutes or games played by that player with the intention of depriving the player of eligibility for one or more awards.
There is also one injury-related clause: If players have a season-ending injury just before reaching the 65-game threshold, they could remain award eligible. That player would have to have played in at least 62 regular-season games, have suffered a season-ending injury and have played in at least 85% of his team's games before getting hurt.
There's also an "extraordinary circumstances" clause. However, league and players union sources do not expect injuries to suffice, as it essentially defeats the purpose of the rule.
"We've never seen a player who's played 40 games, for example, be recognized with [an award impacted by the rule]," [Evan Wasch, the NBA's executive vice president of basketball strategy and analytics] said. "We have seen players kind of in the low- to mid- 50s [in games played] with extraordinary seasons get those recognitions.
"This is just memorializing what the competition committee, the players' association, the league, teams collectively thought reflected in aggregate season performance. ... And we understand that means that a player could fall short by a game, two, three.
"Then that recognition is gonna go to someone else who had, in theory, a greater aggregate contribution to his team by playing 65 or more games."