The Los Angeles Lakers will cheer the return of Austin Reaves later this month, but there’s no silver lining when it comes to postseason honors.
Despite staking a claim as one of the most exciting breakout players in the NBA this season, Reaves is officially ineligible for AllNBA honors or any major end-of-season awards, not because of a drop in production, but because he can’t meet the league’s minimum games-played requirement.
The NBA instituted a rule that players must appear in at least 65 regular-season games to qualify for honors ranging from All-NBA team selections to Most Valuable Player consideration.
This threshold is designed to discourage load management and push stars to participate more often, but it’s also had some unintended consequences: a growing list of elite players, including Reaves, have already slipped below the threshold due to injury.
Through the games he did play this season, the 27-year-old guard was delivering career-best numbers, averaging 26.6 points, 6.3 assists, and 5.2 rebounds per game while shooting 50.7 percent from the field, marks that would normally put him in serious All-NBA conversation.
Things were trending that way early on. With injuries sidelining superstars like LeBron James and Luka Doncic for stretches, Reaves stepped into a featured role.
He dropped 51 points in a win against Sacramento and hit a game-winner versus Minnesota, giving Lakers fans a glimpse of what might have been if he’d stayed on the court.
Instead, Reaves has been out of action since Christmas Day, after reaggravating a left calf strain that had already cost him multiple games.
Those absences pushed him past the league’s allowable misses and effectively ended his eligibility for awards, even though the season is far from finished.
For a player who had never before been a household name outside of Los Angeles, this is a bitter twist.
But it also underscores the impact of the NBA‘s eligibility rule, which has left over 20 contenders across the league out of the awards conversation, even All-Star caliber talents like Nikola Joki and James teeter on the edge of ineligibility due to missed games.
How the gamesplayed rule reshaped this year’s awards picture
When the NBA announced the 65-game minimum a few seasons ago, the intent was to reward durability and reduce strategic absences that had become common in previous years.
What hasn’t changed, however, is the physical reality of basketball: injuries happen, and they don’t always align with scheduling or player importance.
This season, that combination has created unusual consequences for teams and players alike.
Some veterans have already exhausted their allowable missed games, and others are dangerously close to the cutoff.
The result? A regular-season narrative where availability has become as important as performance in award races.
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