“To Punish Someone Because They Get Injured…”: Draymond Green Wants NBA to Scrap 65-Game Awards Rule

Joseph Galizia | 07/03/2026
Mar 2, 2026; San Francisco, California, USA; Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green warms up before a game against the Los Angeles Clippers at Chase Center

With the NBA season approaching its conclusion, discussions around the end-of-year award winners are beginning to intensify. There are several compelling candidates for nearly every major honor, including MVP. However, the infamous 65-game rule continues to hang over the conversation, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of many, including Draymond Green.

Introduced in the 2023-2024 season, the rule states that players must compete in at least 65 games to be eligible for end-of-season awards like Defensive Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, or MVP. Each superstar can only miss a few more games before becoming ineligible, and elite players like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, and Victor Wembanyama are all dangerously close to missing the threshold after already sitting out a significant number of games this season.

It’s becoming a hot topic in basketball circles as some think that it would be ridiculous that Jokic or Shai, two of the MVP frontrunners, should miss out on that because of the 65-game rule. Green addressed it on the latest edition of his podcast.

The Warriors legend doesn’t think it should stop players from losing out. “I understand why the rule was in play. And I can promise you guys love playing basketball and want to play,” began Green.

The rule was implemented to discourage load management and ensure that top players would not sit out too many games, an issue the league has been dealing with for quite some time. However, as Green mentioned, stars rarely miss games they love to play unless they are dealing with significant injuries.

“If guys have a freak injury like Joker, an injury like SGA, if they’ve been good enough in a voter’s mind to get an award, let them get the award because again, it’s also cost guys before. You can’t change it now, right? Let them get the award,” he added.

The NBA likely anticipated a situation like this when it introduced the rule. In theory, it makes sense. Fans want to see stars on the floor. But the reality is that injuries and bad luck are part of the game.

If someone like Jokic or SGA ends up missing the cutoff by a game or two despite clearly playing at an MVP level, the backlash will be loud. At that point, the league may have to reconsider whether a strict technical requirement should decide something as significant as the MVP or even Rookie of the Year.

Post Edited By: Somin Bhattacharjee
Draymond Green Nikola Jokic Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

About the author

Joseph Galizia

Joseph is a Las Vegas based actor and circus performer. For the last seven years he's had the pleasure of covering sports for multiple outlets, including the Lifestyles section of Sports Illustrated. In that time, he's conducted over 50 interviews with athletes, filmmakers, and company founders to further cement his footprint in the journalism world. He's excited to bring that skillset to the SportsRush, where he'll be covering the NBA news cycle.

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