The Clippers, the Award Picture, and the 'Race to 65'
Much was made about the 65-game requirement, so where do the Clippers stand?
A lot has been made of the 65-game requirement for awards and honors — or what I will henceforth refer to as “accolades” — in the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement.
After all, we’d never seen anything like it in the NBA.
A requirement for a certain amount of games to be eligible for such accolades as Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, the All-NBA teams, and the All-Defensive teams? It’s changed the calculus of everything.
It’s not just that players have to log 65 games played, either. It’s the method of what constitutes as having played in a game.
For a game to count on a player’s ledger as one they’ve played in, at least for accolades purposes, they had to have played at least 20 full minutes. If they didn’t do that, that’s fine. They could have played between at least 15 full minutes and 19 minutes and 59 seconds, and it would still count as a game played. But that latter rule is only applicable twice during a player’s season.
For instance: if you have 15 games where you played between 15:00 and 19:59, only two of those 15 count as games played for accolades.
In essence, it weeds out a lot of the bit players and specialists. And, to be fair to them, they aren’t ruled out of the Sixth Man of the Year race as the 65-game requirement doesn’t apply to that award. It doesn’t apply to Rookie of the Year or the All-Rookie teams, either.
So, how do the Clippers stack up as we come out of the All-Star break? Well, we’re here to look at that, so you’re in luck.
The LA Clippers presently sit 36-17, good for third in the Western Conference. That means they’ve logged 53 games as a team and have 29 left.
While guards Norman Powell and Russell Westbrook have played in every single one of those 53 games, the award picture could not be any different for the pair.
Powell has played at least 20 full minutes — which is viewed as 20:00 in box scores — on 44 different occasions already and also logged the maximum allowable tally of two games between 15:00 and 19:59. That, at least in the accolades department, puts Powell at 46 games played. Remember, he’s played in 53 games. But only 46 have counted towards the major awards and honors.
Westbrook is a different story. Like Powell, the future Hall of Famer has played in all 53 games. However, Westbrook has played 20:00 in just 33 of those 53 games. He, also like Powell, has reached the maximum allowance of two games between 15:00 and 19:59. That brings Westbrook up to 35 games. But since 53 minus 35 equals 18, that puts Westbrook over the threshold of 17 “missed” games — 82 minus 17 gets you to that 65-game mark — that you’re afforded by one single game.
Remember: any game under 15:00 is counted as a “missed game” for accolade purposes, and any game under 20:00 isn’t calculated as a played game once you reach the maximum allowance of two games between 15:00 and 19:59. In other words: if you aren’t playing 20:00 in every available game, it’s unlikely you’re in contention for anything.
Here’s the breakdown for the Clippers:
As things stand, only six players on the LA Clippers are presently eligible for any type of major accolade: Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Norman Powell, Terance Mann, and Ivica Zubac.
In the case of Ivica Zubac, the 26-year-old recently missed nine consecutive games with a right calf strain before returning on Feb. 4 and playing 18:20 against the Miami Heat. It was the third time this season that Zubac had played more than 15 minutes but fewer than 20, so therefore it didn’t count towards his allotment since he’d already reached the maximum of two such games. Zubac, for award purposes, has missed 12 games and can only miss five more.
Considering Zubac’s penchant for always playing — after all, he’d played in 360 of the team’s previous 372 games before his injury — there remains a good case that the big man could still reach 65 games played. The only issue could be if he plays less than 20 minutes in any of them since that will count against his total. It’ll be close.
When asked earlier in February if he returned ahead of schedule from his calf injury to make sure he’d stay eligible for a potential Defensive Player of the Year or All-Defense selection, Zubac answered: “No, not really. I mean, that’s the stuff, I mean obviously I care about [that] but not that much to risk my, you know, to risk my health and body. I just, if I feel good, if I think I can play, I’ll go out there and [the] training staff, medical staff, our doctors, they all agreed to it and it was a good time to come back. I was just feeling healthy.”
It should be mentioned that Zubac is a contender for an All-Defensive team, which is under the 65-game umbrella. And since the top six players in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus (DEPM) are all ineligible for All-Defense since none of them will reach the games played threshold, Zubac could have a better case than most would think when also factoring in that both All-Defense and All-NBA are now positionless.
There used to be just two spots allotted for centers on All-Defense. That’s now gone, which means that, in theory, there could be 10 centers on the teams. Will there be? Of course not. But it makes Zubac’s potential case far easier.
The other player close to the cutoff here is Terance Mann. It must be remembered that Mann missed the first six games of the season due to an ankle injury so that already put him behind the 8-ball a bit. But Mann has also played seven games in the 15:00 to 19:59 range — four of those seven have come since Jan. 1. — which as mentioned means only two of those count towards the total.
Mann, who was named a starter out of training camp this season, is unlikely to make any type of race for an accolade but does remain in the hunt to reach the 65-game requirement despite it likely coming down to the wire.
When it comes to Norman Powell the case remains fairly straightforward as we discussed towards the top of this piece. Powell can only play under 20 minutes in 10 more games before then being deemed ineligible for accolades. In Powell’s case, though, he’s likely only involved in Sixth Man of the Year discussions which does not adhere to the 65-game requirement.
And then we have the three stars.
While it can be easy to assume that both Kawhi Leonard and James Harden will reach the 65-game requirement since they each can miss 12 more games, you also have to remember each’s extensive injury history.
Still, for neither to become eligible for accolades it’d require each player to miss 41 percent of the team’s remaining 29 games. Barring something catastrophic, each of these two should make it and, especially in the case of Leonard, should be strong contenders for awards.
The case is far simpler for Paul George. The swingman has only missed three games this season. Even in the game he sat out the second half in due to an injury, George still logged 15:50 which meant it counted towards the 65. George can essentially miss half of the remaining 29 games — 48 percent, to be exact — and find himself eligible. George has dealt with groin issues this season, but it does appear to be behind him for the time being.
Considering the list of star-level players that are already ineligible for awards — for instance: Joel Embiid and Jimmy Butler, both of whom made All-NBA teams last season, have already missed more than 17 games — it could make the case easier for players like Leonard, George, and Harden if they reach the threshold.
There’s still a lot to play for as far as the Clippers are concerned this season, not just on the court from a wins and losses and seeding standpoint, but also from an accolades perspective. All the main players need to do is get to the 65-game mark. It could be easier said than done for a few, but it remains attainable.
As always with the Clippers, health is paramount. And it might not matter more than when it comes to individual awards.
If you’d like to see a full list of every single active roster NBA player this season and where they stand in ‘Race to 65’, you can click the following link: Google Sheet.