NBA awards voting could be delayed due to Luka Doncic's appeal
· Yahoo Sports
Due to the Grade 2 hamstring strain he sustained this past Thursday against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Luka Dončić will top out at 64 regular-season games this season. Per NBA rules, that leaves him one game short of the 65-game minimum required to be eligible for end-of-season awards.
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His agent, Bill Duffy, issued a statement to ESPN saying that he will apply for an "Extraordinary Circumstances Challenge" to the 65-game rule, since Doncic missed two games earlier this year to witness the birth of his second child in Europe.
NBA insider Marc Stein wrote on his Substack about how that will impact the balloting for individual awards this season. That exemption Duffy said he will apply for cannot be submitted until the very end of the regular season, which is just before voting takes place. Stein wrote that it could delay the voting a little bit (h/t Silver Screen and Roll).
"League rules stipulate that such a challenge can only be filed on the final day of the regular season (April 12 in this case). The league will have to rule on the challenge before releasing it’s electronic ballots to voters, meaning that the voting process might be delayed slightly from its planned April 13-14 window."
The balloting process likely won't be delayed for more than a couple of days while Duffy's request is reviewed, so it won't hold things up in a major way.
Doncic will likely not win this season's MVP award, but he currently leads the league with an average of 33.5 points a game, which means he could win his second scoring title. He also has the opportunity to be elected to the All-NBA First Team for the sixth time and the first time in two years.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: NBA awards voting could be delayed due to Luka Doncic's appeal