Saturday 18 July 2020 08:57, UK
The NBA has told teams that none of the seeding games will be taken into consideration for any individual postseason awards.
Instead, voting for those honours - such as All-NBA, Rookie of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year - will be completed before the season's July 30 restart at Walt Disney World, in which only 22 of the league's 30 sides are competing.
In a message sent to teams on Friday, the NBA said: "The decision to exclude seeding games from awards voting ensures a fair process in which players and coaches from all 30 teams will have the same opportunity to be honoured as top performers for the regular season."
The league's decision was not unexpected, and means that Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo's campaign for back-to-back most valuable player (MVP) awards technically ended more than four months ago, when the season was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Antetokounmpo won his first MVP award after averaging 27.7 points and 12.5 rebounds per game last season. This season, he is expected to be an MVP frontrunner again, with averages of 29.6 points and 13.7 rebounds for the Bucks, who have the league's best record.
The NBA's decision also means that the New Orleans Pelicans' Zion Williamson, who has appeared in only 19 games this season, will not get to make a late push to try to catch presumed top-rookie frontrunner Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies.
It is unclear if Williamson will even be with the Pelicans for re-opening night on July 30 - when they face the Utah Jazz in the first game at the Disney campus - after he left the NBA's bubble on Thursday to deal with what the team called an urgent family medical matter.
Statistical championships, such as the scoring, rebounding, assist and steal titles, are technically up for grabs through the end of the seeding games in mid-August. The league announced that portion of the plan when the schedules for the eight seeding games were released last month.
Most of those stat-trophy races are largely mathematically decided. The Houston Rockets' James Harden has a commanding lead in the scoring race as he closes in on his third consecutive title in that category, which would make him the eighth player in NBA history to win the scoring crown in at least three straight seasons.
The Cleveland Cavaliers' Andre Drummond has a sizeable lead in the race for the rebound title, while LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers is set to win the assist-per-game race.
If the 35-year-old James wins the assist title - and it would take a mathematical oddity to keep that from happening - he will be the second-oldest player to claim that award. Steve Nash was 37 when he won his last assists crown.
The steals race is still uncertain; the Philadelphia 76ers' Ben Simmons leads at 2.13 per game, while the Chicago Bulls' Kris Dunn is currently in second place.
