NEW YORK — Upon further review, Indiana’s Myles Turner is the NBA’s blocked-shot champion for this season.
The NBA said Tuesday that Turner will be recognized as the winner in that category, even though he did not play in the required 70% of games that are typically needed for someone to qualify as a statistical leader.
Turner averaged 3.4 blocks per game in 47 games. Utah’s Rudy Gobert averaged 2.7 blocks per game in 71 games.
By NBA rule, Turner would have needed to appear in 51 games to qualify for the award, so he fell four games short. But if Turner he had played in those four additional games to reach the minimum and didn’t even block a single shot, his average would have been 3.1 per game — still well ahead of Gobert.
The exception to that rule has been established for years. The NBA allows someone to be recognized as a stat champion if, at the end of the season, “the player would have led the league in the category had he played the required number of games with his current category total.”