Luka, Cunningham win appeal, eligible for awards

Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic and Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham will be eligible for end-of-season awards after the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association agreed Thursday that both of them would be allowed to bypass the 65-game threshold for eligibility requirements.

Under the league's collective bargaining agreement, there is an "extraordinary circumstances" clause that a player can use to petition to make the ballot if he falls short of the 65-game minimum.

"The NBA and NBPA agreed that, taking into account the totality of the circumstances for Cunningham and Dončić, each player qualified for awards," the league and the union said in a statement.

Doncic played 64 games during the regular season, but he missed two games in December due to traveling for the birth of his child abroad.

Cunningham played in 63 games, but he missed 12 games after suffering a collapsed lung in mid-March.

Rather than those cases going to an arbitrator, however, both the NBA and the NBPA agreed to waive the rule for both players.

"I am grateful to the NBPA for advocating on my behalf and to the NBA for their fair decision," Doncic posted to X on Thursday. "It was so important to me to be present for the birth of my daughter in December, and I appreciate Mark, Jeanie, Rob, JJ, and the entire Lakers organization for fully supporting me and allowing me to travel to be there.

"This season has been so special to me because of what my teammates and I have been able to accomplish, and I am honored to have the opportunity to be considered for the league's end-of-season awards."

One player, however, did go the route of challenging the rule with an arbitrator: Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards, who played in 60 games this season. The arbitrator denied Edwards' case, however, and he will not be eligible for end-of-season awards.

The rule has been a hot topic this season, as players such as Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Devin Booker and Edwards, among others, aren't eligible after failing to reach the 65-game threshold.

Meanwhile, San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama and Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic both flirted with falling short of the 65-game mark for the final couple of months of the season. Wembanyama reached it in the penultimate game of the season, and Jokic reached the mark on the final day.

Nuggets coach David Adelman said last week that he hopes the 65-game rule is changed, somehow, this summer. He said if players like Jokic can play 64 games, never wanting to come out, and not be award-eligible, then something is wrong.

"That's not the spirit of what that rule is," Adelman said.

However, the NBA has consistently said it is happy with the rule. Commissioner Adam Silver said at last month's board of governors news conference in New York City that the rule is doing what it was supposed to do.

"I think it is working," Silver said. "I think if you look at the numbers, the pre-implementation of this rule, numbers were going in the wrong direction. I may have this a little bit off, I think the three years before we adopted this rule, almost a third of the All-NBA players had not played 80% of the games. That was a huge issue for the league.

"... There was a general agreement between us and the players' association that we needed to do something about that. The result was to have this 65-game rule. Could it be 68? Could it be 62? That was the product of a negotiation. I generally think it's worked. That, along with the player participation policy, there is not nearly as much discussion about load management as there was, in part because the teams and players have responded. You see them on the floor now."

These cases being adjudicated has held up the usual end-of-season voting process for awards, as the NBA was waiting to have the list of players eligible for awards firmed up before sending ballots out to voters.

Those ballots should be sent out sometime Thursday and will be due back to the NBA on Friday. The usual rollout of end-of-season awards will begin later this month as the playoffs begin, with finalists for all of the awards being announced and then the winners of each of the individual awards -- in addition to All-NBA, All-Defense and All-Rookie teams -- being announced separately after that.

ESPN's Shams Charania and The Associated Press contributed to this report.