Wikipedia:WikiProject National Basketball Association/What merits inclusion in an infobox

Per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, infoboxes are meant to highlight key facts, not every detail of a player's career. Within the context of NBA player pages, the question regularly arises whether particular honors merit being highlighted in an infobox. There are some NBA honors we can all agree do not belong. For example, conference Player of the Week awards are too regular to merit inclusion and are issued by conference, not league-wide. And there are some other NBA awards we all know do belong, such as league MVP awards. And that's not even considering the long range of non-NBA awards which are important features in a player's career and merit being highlighted. When considering whether to include any award in an NBA player's infobox, use your judgment and give appropriate weight to all factors.

Past discussions within the NBA WikiProject can be a useful point of reference, as can the guidance at WP:NBAHIGHLIGHTS. Such discussions have revealed a few points of baseline consensus.

League-wide honors are preferred
In general, league-wide honors merit inclusion in infoboxes. This is not true of every league-wide honor, but it is true for most of them. Most awards that community consensus dictates merit inclusion (such as NBA Most Valuable Player, All-NBA Teams, NBA Defensive Player of the Year, NBA Rookie of the Year, etc.) are fundamentally similar in the sense that they are issued on a league-wide basis. They are not by conference or by division: they consider performance across the league.

Awards that fit into this category also tend to be included in resources provided by the NBA itself. In its annual media guide, the NBA includes a list of "award winners" which documents each recipient of a major league-wide award.

But this isn't an inexorable rule. Not every award which merits inclusion is league-wide. For instance, NBA Finals Most Valuable Player and NBA All-Star Most Valuable Player awards do not measure league-wide performance and instead focus on a uniquely notable game or series. They nevertheless merit inclusion and are documented in the NBA's media guide. Recognizing an award is or isn't league-wide doesn't provide a definitive answer on the question of if it merits inclusion. It's merely a starting point.

Other factors matter
There are many considerations besides the league-wide or non-league-wide nature of an award which bear mention. These are just a few.

Is the award major?
When considering whether an award is "major," don't simply rely on your own assessment of importance. Consider the criteria at WP:GNG and ask questions like whether the award has received significant coverage and whether reliable secondary sources support an inference of importance. This requires more than just reporting on the fact of the award having been issued. The pertinent question is whether the reporting suggests that the award is genuinely major. If an award meets the threshold set by the general notability guidelines, it likely merits being highlighted in the infobox.

But community consensus requires more than merely current notability. To avoid making editorial decisions based on WP:RECENTISM, a consensus has arisen that there should be an indication that the award in question will have lasting notability. This means that significant media attention at the time of the award being issued isn't alone sufficient. That reporting must lend itself to the idea that the award has lasting significance in the context of the player's career.

Is the award a one-off?
Evaluating whether an award will likely have lasting notability is more than an exercise in guesswork and prediction. One factor which can help objectively guide such an assessment is whether the award is a one-time event. For instance, the community has discussed the lasting notability of awards issued specifically for the 2020 NBA Bubble and determined that such awards probably lack lasting notability because, barring something unexpected, the Bubble will likely be a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Although one-off awards may garner significant media attention at the time they are awarded, they don't present a good case for lasting notability since they are not issued on an annual basis.

As such, if an award is a one-off, without more it likely does not merit being highlighted in a player's infobox.

How many players received the award?
Some league-wide awards are received by multiple players and others are more limited. For instance, an All-NBA designation is received by 15 players annually, while the NBA Most Valuable Player award is given to just one player. While both merit inclusion on an infobox, quantity could prove a much more useful bright-line when assessing lesser-tier awards. For example, while there is a strong community consensus against highlighting All-Bubble designations, there is significant disagreement regarding the separate issue of if the Bubble Most Valuable Player award merits inclusion. The main distinction between the two is that the latter is given to only one player.

The number of recipients for an award is not outcome determinative, but it is yet another detail to consider in making your assessment of whether an award is sufficiently notable to merit being highlighted.

Where an award fits in the context of a player's career
To this point, the factors that we've discussed have focused on the award itself, but it's important to remember that the focus of the infobox is the player's career. Thus, it's also important to consider where an award fits in the context of the player's career.  In the middle of a player's career, this may be a difficult assessment to make. After all, it's impossible (and unwise to try) to guess where a player will end up by the end of their career. It's also not the role of Wikipedia to try and make such forecasts. Accordingly, try to ground this editorial judgment call in the commentary of reliable secondary sources.

As an example, consider the media coverage of Luka Doncic's Rookie of the Year win. That coverage described Doncic's receipt of the award as the "perfect start" to a potential superstar "career." That coverage tells us a few things. First, it suggests that in the context of Doncic's career the award may be an important milestone for him that marks the beginning of something more significant. Second, it tells us that the award, though significant, is not expected to be the most significant thing in his career. This analytical process can be used to determine the notability of other awards received by other players within the context of their careers, and thus the merit in highlighting them on such a player's infobox.