This week has seen much controversy about the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement, which demands a minimum of 65 games played to be eligible for the league’s main awards.

Joel Embiid, the reigning Kia MVP, is on the verge of disqualification after missing three of Philadelphia’s last four games with a painful left knee before injuring his left lateral meniscus on Tuesday against Golden State.

According to the NBA’s new player participation policy, every major award, including MVP and All-NBA, requires a player to miss no more than 17 games. Embiid is set to miss his 14th game Saturday against Brooklyn.

That means he’d be four games away from being disqualified for a repeat as MVP.

This current Kia Race to the MVP Ladder explains the big man’s precarious situation.

One metric to keep in mind is Embiid’s field-goal percentage of 53.3, which puts him on track to become the third player in NBA history (Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan) to average 35 points or more while shooting 50% or higher from the field in a season.

They’re yelling, “Freak play with him and [Jonathan Kuminga], diving for the ball. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so horrible if the knee wasn’t already injured. Now, we have one of our prime faces in this league, the MVP of our league, who may be hurt for a lengthy period of time because he is forcing it (to play the league’s obligatory 65 games). — Warriors forward Draymond Green on “The Draymond Green Show” on Embiid’s injury.

It’s not only Embiid: Several players vying for big honors are in the same scenario as the Sixers center due to missed games.

Kyrie Irving, a Dallas Mavericks guard, is already ineligible after missing 21 games, while Miami Heat stars Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo have missed 15 and 10, respectively.

Tyrese Haliburton, an Indiana Pacers guard, is up for All-NBA honors after missing only three games in the first three months of the season before suffering a strained left hamstring that shelved him for ten more games.