The NBA is about to make a massive Victor Wembanyama-sized mistake

The San Antonio Spurs are putting the finishing touches on their best season in nearly a decade. Meanwhile, superstar Victor Wembanyama is finalizing his case for not only MVP but also Defensive Player of the Year and All-NBA honors.

Wembanyama is currently on pace to reach the NBA's 65-game-played minimum needed to qualify for awards. In fact, he only needs to appear in just six of the team's nine remaining games to qualify for end-of-season awards.

Nevertheless, with a late-season injury to Cade Cunningham, many are starting to see the flaws in the current system. Despite obvious flaws, Commissioner Adam Silver has seemingly dug in and recently stated that there are no plans to change the rule (subscription required). That's a huge mistake.

The NBA must alter their 65-game-played awards rule

The biggest flaw is that the number of games required to qualify for awards is arbitrary. Why not 60 games? Or why not 70 games? Minutes played should matter just as much as playing at least 65 games.

Having a player play two-thirds of the regular season makes sense in theory. However, it also penalizes players who are injured late in the season or those that have a prolonged injury rather than the players who sit out games while healthy.

Philadelphia 76ers star Tyrese Maxey is case in point. Despite him having missed 12 games this season, he leads the NBA in minutes, playing 38.3 minutes per game.

So what if he misses six more games than the threshold when he's actually playing big minutes whenever he suits up?

Victor Wembanyama could benefit from the possible rule change

Adding a 2000-minute played carve-out for the 65-game played rule would help stars such as Wembanyama, Cunningham, and Maxey. For instance, if a star averaged around 33.4 minutes and appeared in 60 games, they would still qualify for end-of-season awards.

That would be because they had played at least 2000 minutes. Or, if a player such as Wembanyama averages fewer than 30 minutes per game this season, they must play several more games to qualify for the award.

Had this rule been in place this season, Maxey and Cunningham would qualify for end-of-season awards due to meeting the 2,000 minutes threshhold.

Having that rule in place going forward would be a smart move by the NBA. It would also help players such as Wembanyama qualify for end-of-season awards by encouraging them to play more without penalizing them for legitimate injuries. Adam Silver: Make it happen.