Charles Barkley Shows No Sympathy as Adam Silver’s Controversial Rules Puts Millions of Dollars at Risk for NBA Stars

The NBA’s recent 65-game rule is creating ripples in the basketball world. An added layer of eligibility for MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, the All-NBA teams, and the All-Defensive teams, is that the player must have played in a minimum of 65 games in a season.

Although the rule seems to have backfired because several athletes have come out expressing their frustration, NBA veteran Charles Barkley is in support of it. The players will not only lose the opportunity to win these awards, but they will lose a lot of money in the process as well.

Barkley said that anyone who has a problem with it has no one else to blame. He said, “These players got nobody to blame but themselves. …It’s a fair rule. I thought it should’ve been 70 [games].” The NBA’s executive vice president Joe Dumars had the foresight that this decision was going to ruffle some feathers. He said, “You’re always gonna have unintended consequences, that’s the first thing. The second thing, you kind of knew that the first couple of guys that were going to get close to that mark, it will become an issue. So it probably was going to become a talking point at some point.”

Tyrese Haliburton’s could lose $41 million

The new NBA rule says that a player needs to have played a minimum of 20 minutes per game for 65 games a season in order to be eligible for the awards. Tyrese Haliburton has signed a max contract extension with the Indiana Pacers. His five-year deal is worth a massive $204.5 million. He has been on an incredible run so far, but pulling out of games can prove to be lethal for his contract. If Haliburton makes an All-NBA team, under the Rose rule he can make up to 30% of the cap, an extra $41 million over the contract’s life.

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The problem with that requirement is that he can now only miss three more games for the remainder of the season, which seems very unlikely and exhaustive. Maybe that is why he has expressed his frustration over the new rule. He said, “I think it’s a stupid rule, like plenty of the guys in the league, but this is what the owners want, so as players, we gotta do our job and play in 65 games if we’re able to.” He said that he would now take care of his body and try to live up to the league’s requirements.

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