Anthony Edwards averaged 29.3 points per game this season, among the NBA’s scoring leaders. He missed Thursday’s game in Detroit due to right knee pain and an illness, and that absence pushed him to 58 counted games with six left in the regular season. He can no longer reach the 65-game minimum required for NBA award eligibility. His MVP candidacy, his All-NBA case, all of it, gone.
Anthony Edwards’ No Longer Eligible for NBA Honors
Minnesota Timberwolves coach Chris Finch confirmed Edwards’ illness kept him out of Thursday’s game against the Pistons. The team listed Edwards as out for “Right Knee Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome; Illness.” Edwards remains day-to-day, and his availability for Friday against the 76ers is questionable.
Edwards had returned from a six-game absence just the game before, scoring 17 points in 23 minutes against Dallas.
He finishes the game-log math the same way this season’s best players keep finishing it. Short. Edwards joins LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, and Cade Cunningham in the growing pool of stars who will not qualify for postseason awards in 2025-26.
The NBA introduced the 65-game threshold in the 2023 collective bargaining agreement, taking effect in the 2023-24 season. The intent was straightforward: push stars to show up, stop load management, make regular-season games matter. Players must appear in at least 65 of 82 games to qualify for MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, and All-NBA.
It made sense on paper. It looks different now.
The National Basketball Players Association called for the rule’s abolishment last week, in a statement tied to Cade Cunningham’s collapsed lung. “Cade Cunningham’s potential ineligibility for postseason awards after a career-defining season is a clear indictment of the 65-game rule and yet another example of why it must be abolished or reformed to create an exception for significant injuries,” the NBPA said.
“Since its implementation, far too many deserving players have been unfairly disqualified from end-of-season honors by this arbitrary and overly rigid quota.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver defended the rule last week. “We always knew when there’s a line you draw, that somebody’s going to fall on the other side of that line,” Silver said. “And it may feel unfair in that particular instance.” Silver acknowledged the rule feels unfair. That is not a strong defense.
Anthony Edwards’ Stats Made Him a Real MVP Contender
Edwards is not a fringe case. He averaged 29.3 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per game, with his scoring at a career high for the 24-year-old. He anchors Minnesota’s defense and runs the offense in the most competitive conference in basketball.
The problem is not his talent. The problem is that the NBA built a rule to penalize stars who rest while healthy, and it now punishes stars who play through pain. Edwards missed games in short stretches all season, grinding through knee inflammation, not taking spa weeks in February.
Nikola Jokic and Kawhi Leonard each sit one missed game away from joining Edwards in ineligibility. The regular season ends in less than two weeks. More names could follow. The league wanted accountability. What it built is a system that disqualifies injured players from awards they earned on merit, while Silver calls it working.
Anthony Edwards at 29.3 points per game, unable to win MVP because of a knee, is not a bug in the system. It is the system.
