{"id":588095,"date":"2026-04-16T17:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588095\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T17:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:06:09","slug":"luka-doncic-and-cade-cunningham-are-eligible-for-nba-awards-after-successful-appeals-of-65-game-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588095\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and Cade Cunningham are eligible for NBA awards after successful appeals of 65-game rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> ‘ Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and Detroit Pistons<\/a> ‘ Cade Cunningham will be eligible for awards such as MVP and All-NBA this season despite falling short of the 65-game minimum<\/a>, the league and the National Basketball Players Association said Thursday.<\/p>\n

Don\u010di\u0107 played in 64 games and Cunningham played in 63. But the league and the union both agreed that each should be on the ballot based on the \u201cextraordinary circumstances provision\u201d in the collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n

Don\u010di\u0107 \u2014 who is one of the favorites to contend for MVP honors after winning the league’s scoring title \u2014 missed two games to attend the birth of his daughter in Slovenia. Cunningham missed 12 games as a result of a collapsed lung that was diagnosed on March 17.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NBA and NBPA agreed that, taking into account the totality of the circumstances for Cunningham and Don\u010di\u0107, each player qualified for awards,\u201d the league and the union said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards<\/a>, who played in 60 qualified games, also tried to get on the awards ballot through the extraordinary circumstances challenge \u2014 but sought his approval before an independent arbitrator. His challenge was denied.<\/p>\n

The statuses of Don\u010di\u0107 and Cunningham were a major topic toward the end of the season. San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama \u2014 an MVP candidate and the likely defensive player of the year \u2014 got to the 65-game mark<\/a> in the Spurs’ next-to-last game, and Denver’s three-time MVP Nikola Jokic became qualified for this year’s awards on the final day of the regular season. Jokic has been first or second in MVP balloting in each of the last five seasons and won the league’s rebounding and assist titles this season.<\/p>\n

Nuggets coach David Adelman said last week that he hopes the 65-game rule is changed, somehow, this summer. He said if players like Jokic can play 64 games, never wanting to come out, and not be award-eligible, then something is wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not the spirit of what that rule is,\u201d Adelman said.<\/p>\n

A number of players will be ineligible for most major individual awards this season because of the 65-game rule, including the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 LeBron James \u2014 whose 21-year streak of making an All-NBA team will end. Milwaukee\u2019s Giannis Antetokounmpo and Golden State\u2019s Stephen Curry have also missed too many games to be eligible.<\/p>\n

With the decisions on Don\u010di\u0107, Cunningham and Edwards now complete, the NBA is expected to send award ballots to the panel of reporters and broadcasters who cover the league in the coming days. It’s unclear when the announcement of award winners will begin.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers ‘ Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and Detroit Pistons ‘ Cade Cunningham will be eligible for awards…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[31513,88728,4134,359,3013,355,1756,99,2244,32090],"class_list":["post-588095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-david-adelman","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-lebron-james","tag-nba","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-sports","tag-stephen-curry","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}