The discourse surrounding the second half of the NBA season has been, in large part, defined by the debate around the league’s 65-game threshold, which requires players to participate in a minimum of 65 regular-season games to qualify for league awards such as MVP and All-NBA teams.
The Inside the NBA crew, consisting of Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny “The Jet” Smith, and Charles Barkley, sat down for its final broadcast of the 2025-26 NBA regular season on Sunday, and Barkley weighed in on the issue with his trademark humor and blunt honesty.
“I don’t think 65 games is a lot to ask,” Barkley said. “Man, shut the hell up. Ya’ll voted on that in the collective bargaining, now ya’ll want to complain. If ya’ll wasn’t sitting on your ass half the time, sipping margaritas and stuff, they wouldn’t have put the 65-game threshold in there. Shut the hell up.”
The 65-game threshold, which was first implemented in the 2023-24 regular season, has come under heavy scrutiny this season, with stars such as Anthony Edwards, LeBron James, and Cade Cunningham all being ineligible, and Luka Dončić’s eligibility hanging in the balance.
San Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama, the favorite to take home his season’s Defensive Player of the Year award, expressed relief after clearing the threshold for the first time in his career, calling the accomplishment “a box that’s [been] checked,” while also expressing sympathy for some of the league’s other stars who failed to qualify.
Wembanyama opened the question to the media, asking reporters what percentage of the season they believe ought to be required to qualify for end-of-season awards.
“… a guy that plays 50 games, 35 minutes a game, that’s 50 times 35. That’s 1,750 [minutes], right? And if a guy plays 75 games at 20 minutes, it’s 1,500 [minutes].
“It’s a good view in my opinion to not have a limit. It’s one opinion. 75 percent of the games, in my opinion, would be a logical thing. That would be 61.5 games, right? So 62 games? There’s some interesting questions. I don’t think there’s going to be an exception made for this year. I think it would be somewhat unfair. But we’ll see how it turns out.”
Barkley was just as impressed with Wembanyama’s mental arithmetic skills.
“What we need to do is send all these bad ass American kids over to France to go to school. That’s the first thing we need to do. All these dummy kids over here. We need to send they ass to France,” he said.
While Barkley may be joking, the 65-game threshold does change the math for players quite a bit, with end-of-season awards resulting in financial benefits for players and impacting supermax contract eligibility. It’s a dire issue for a league that had 168 players sitting on the final day of its regular season, and Barkley is correct that players agreed to the rule in collective bargaining.
However, if it is disqualifying deserving players, a better-suited system ought to be explored, whether that be lowering the games required or changing the requirement to minutes played.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.