It’s hard to argue that Donte DiVincenzo isn’t one of the NBA’s most improved players, but the Knicks shooting guard won’t be a regular-season candidate to win that special award.
Due to league rules, DiVincenzo is not eligible to participate in the NBA’s Most Improved Player voting. a league spokesperson told ESPN..
CBS Sports first reported Regarding Di Vincenzo’s disqualification from the Most Valuable Player Award.
A new rule introduced last offseason requires players to appear in at least 65 games in a season to be eligible for the Major League-wide award. and Players must log at least 20 minutes of play time for a game to count toward that total.
DiVincenzo fell three games short of meeting the latter requirement, despite the leeway the league allows (players who play 15 to 20 minutes in a contest are given extra credit for up to two games). , the conditions were not met. League benchmarks per game.
Knicks center Isaiah Hartenstein will also be ineligible for the award during the regular season due to a similar issue with playing time.
What makes the situation even stranger is that even though there were 66 games in which DiVincenzo played at least 19 1/2 minutes, the NBA doesn’t round up his total time, so he still doesn’t meet the required requirement. .
DiVincenzo jumped from 9.4 points per game to 15.5 points per game this season and made a franchise-record 283 3-pointers in a season.
This season, he played in 81 of the Knicks’ 82 games and logged a career-high 2,360 minutes.
He played a career-high 53 minutes in Sunday’s win over the Bulls.
“It was actually okay,” DiVincenzo said of the long match after the win. “Right now we’re in the playoffs and we’re all locked in and there’s no continuity.”
The Knicks finished the season with a 50-32 record and will begin the playoffs on Saturday as the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
