Details are still being worked out regarding a proposed in-season tournament, but the NBA appears to be targeting the 2023/24 season to implement it.
Shams Charania of The Athletic reported this week that the current framework has cup games being held throughout November with eight teams advancing to a single-elimination format that would be played in December. All the games would count toward the teams’ regular-season record, and the finalists would each have one extra game.
The tournament would have to be approved by the players union, and the two sides are continuing to sort through ideas. One important step will be deciding what incentives will be given to the final eight teams to make advancing worth the effort. Charania states that the Competition Committee discussed the tournament last September and considered prize money of $1MM per player for the winning team.
Commissioner Adam Silver has been a longtime proponent of the in-season tournament, believing it will eventually become as popular as a similar event in European soccer. Silver said in February that the players appear more receptive toward the idea after seeing the success of the play-in tournament that determines the final two playoff spots in each conference.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told NBA writer Marc Stein that he has changed his mind about the in-season tournament and is “actually open to it,” starting with next season (Twitter link). Cuban said the event “has a chance to build interest” for the league during the early part of its schedule.
Cuban also proposes expanding the draft from two to four rounds and giving the first pick in the two new rounds to the tournament winner (Twitter link). He would add the stipulation that those two picks cannot be traded. Like the tournament itself, any changes to the draft process would require NBPA approval.
We want to get your opinion. Do you believe an in-season tournament would cause more fans to pay attention to the NBA during the fall? And do you see merit in Cuban’s idea to expand the draft? Please leave your answers in the space below.
I don’t think you need a four round draft. A lot of second rounders don’t get signed anyway but an additional pick to the winner would be fine although I’m not sure that’s much of an incentive.
I agree, a four round draft seems excessive. If they’re going to award 1 extra pick to the tournament winner, that’d be fine though. I’d just sandwich that one selection between the first and second rounds of the draft.
However, honestly, I’m not into this tournament idea at all.
Yeah I agree – second round picks are already given away. I don’t see teams putting their star players at risk for a tournament that will give them a right to select a player who most likely never even suits up for them.
I’d be interested to hear what the actual incentive would be for an in-season tourney. I don’t follow soccer so I’m unfamiliar.
Before anything else, it’s important for us to establish the BIG WHY. You can already see that in the comments for the In-Tourney, people have been asking what’s in it for the fans, for the players. Whatever it is, it has to be something better than the status quo else it will be seen as a step backward and be criticized – all touche.
So far one comment has put into words one BIG WHY – for fun!
So let’s see what we already have going on and what else could we be craving for (if there’s any).
HAVE:
All Star Game thru a Fantasy Draft ✓
Young Guns via USA vs the World ✓
Skills Challenge, Shootout, SlamDunk ✓
Play-In Tourney for #7-10 teams
more to play for ~ tighter competition ~
more fun ✓
Summer League for Rookie+Undrafted
games ✓
Pre-season – to acclimate players into the
RS games where International Teams
also play ✓
Regular Season /RS games outside the
US ✓
HAVE NOTS
> G-League All Stars Vs. Non-NBA International All Stars Vs. WNBA All Stars
> Mixed NBA, WNBA & Celebrity All Stars
> Enhanced in-season bearing games
It’s a long long season and it’s fun for contending teams. I guess this is the thing/ premise, the more games that have bearing for teams, the more competition, the more fun the games will be.
Lesser teams who feels they are not strong enough to contend might as well tank and “compete” for the bottom ranks (despite revising the odds, lower ranked teams still have better chances to get higher picks)
The key words are “not strong enough”, which is a relative term. For last season, ORL, HOU and DET are probably almost certainly not strong enough VS GSW, PHX, BOS or MIA. But could be strong enough for OKC, SAC, IND, and other Non-Play-In Teams.
The reasons why Play-In Tourney was competitive was #1 It has huge bearing on who gets into the playoffs and #2 they are all more evenly matched.
What makes the playoffs more exciting as it gets deeper into the finals? The teams become more evenly matched as the playoffs progress.
I could go on with other examples like NCAA’s March Madness going into the Sweet 16, Elite 8, Big 4 and Finals.
Or even as far as to ask would you watch Manny Pacquiao Vs. The Lowest Ranked Boxer in another Weight Class? Of course you pay a leg and an arm for a Pacquiao Vs. Mayweather Rematch.
Same thing with Amateur Leagues having Division A, B and so on.
So again bearing games and “skill-level matching”.
Imagine a potential Big 4 of the NBA ranked across the whole league (not just by conferences), battle it out for a single or double round robin. That’s fantasy basketball right there!
Not that I’m saying to bowl this right into the RS games and blow it all up. Doesn’t make any sense. The question is, how do you structure whole NBA season so that you’ll get the most evenly matched games.
Here’s an attempt for a ROUGH answer to above question to kick things off. How about each team gets to play the other teams in their home court at least once (that’s the goal of fans having the chance to see their favorite players play in their hometown right).
That’s 29 x2 (home & away Vs. all other teams) = 58 games.
By then we get to sort real contenders from the developmental teams.
Play-In Tourney can kick in to determine last 2 play-off spots of each conference (gives additional break incentive for players for the higher ranked teams).
The non-playoff teams can then participate in a consolation bracket where teams can play for the lottery picks, #1 pick goes to the “Champion”, #2 to the second place and so on.
Based on league-wide regular season rankings and play-in tourney, team losing in play-in gets a BYE. #19(~NYK) plays #30(~ORL), #20(~WAS) vs #29(~DET) and so on for the consolation bracket preliminary games. That’s 6 pairings / 6 games.
The winners of 6 games join the Play-in losing teams for their own best-of-3 consolation playoffs (#1v8, 2v7 etc). The losing teams in the conso-playoff quarter finals keep playing battle for 5th pick and battle for 7th pick knock off games (ala FIBA ranking games).
Losing teams in the conso-playoff semis battle for the 3rd pick in a K.O. game. The 6 losing teams in the conso-playoff preliminaries can play a single or double round robin with best team getting 9th pick and so on.
So imagine Lebron playing to win the chance to team up with either Jabari Smith, Chet Holmgren or Paolo Banchero or even Jaden Ivey so AD or Westbrook can get their protege.
Now I’d prefer to watch that than a non-bearing end of season tanking games nor a draft lottery, won’t you?
Some could say, borderline playoff teams /play In teams could then choose to tank? How do we avoid that? Then how about pouring more league-shared revenues to the playoff teams? And even possibly trickle some of them not only to the team orgs but to the players. Should be motivation for everybody right? (Again it’s a ROUGH kick-off answer for refining).
How about the bottom teams ORL, DET, HOU, how do they get competitive again, which was the original purpose of the draft lottery. Then they’re forced to develop more quickly and sign a few veterans here and there, and aim to finish #17-20 at the end of regular season. This is much better than aiming to be #30 right? Of course!
While at the same time if they fail to do that goal, the worst they could be getting is the most recent estabished mock drafts average concensus #14 being Mark Williams, Ousmane Dieng, Malaki Branham or TyTy Washington? Not bad an aid for the bottom-finishing teams!
All teams have a thing to play for upto the end of the season. Fans of the teams have something to watch and cheer on upto the end if the season.
Draft picks would be more valuable, and for those in favor of less stars creating super-teams for a more level playing field, this could decrease movement because teams would now want to hold on to draft picks so they have something to play for if they miss the playoffs/ play in.
Another benefit is, per team shall play 58 RS games + 4-28 playoff / conso bracket games = 62-90 games overall vs 82-108, spanning from Nov. to June:
#1 You can reduce back-to-back games to lessen risk of injury
#2 You can re-sched games more freely for present and future unseen circumstances like pandemic
#3 You can lenghten the summer leagues for more rookie /undrafted player exposure / development. Hold it as early as late May, include more teams and commercialize it more into another G-League type, possibly a U-23 or something. Include international teams there, G-League All Stars, heck even the All WNBA Team
#4 There’s now more space to place another tournament with another format like the March Madness K.O. games with the league being sponsored by some Corporation and the team names being the Company officially sponsoring the NBA Team (ex. Disney Magic, PayPal Suns, etc. Would create more jersey merchandise and stuff). Could be held after the Summer League so there’s some rest after the Finals, and could be used to gel the draftees into their teams. Again you can throw in here G-league All Stars, EuroLeague All Stars, Asian Bball League All Stars, WMBA All Stars, all joining in the fun of the BIG DANCE.
I’m just gonna be honest and say I’m not reading anything that long. You lost me.
I think this in season tournament is a disgrace to the tradition and history of the NBA. The 82 game marathon of a season is the play in tournament. As it is, the top 16 or now top 20 teams have a shot. That’s more than enough. It’s that simple.
I’m not even mad, I’m impressed!
You don’t need to announce it just don’t read it.
You’re still joking about R Kelly, and now you’re telling me what to post?
I’ll pass on that advice, but thanks Mr. pee fetish joke that’s been played for 15 years now
The NBA is putting out nothing but Gimmicks! These Gimmicks are designed to do one thing. Make Money!! Why do you have to “bribe” the players with “Prize Money” to get them interested???
Nobody cares about winning an in-season title! The effort exerted could cost you the real title.
Home court advantage means nothing anymore. Teams are confident they will win one on the opponent floor and take the advantage back.
Very Berry, home court means everything in the NBA playoffs.
I’m in favor of an in-season tournament with a caveat: reduce the number of regular season games at the same time.
The biggest plague on the league right now is that a significant chunk of the schedule A) doesn’t matter but more importantly B) isn’t even played by the best players.
As a consumer it’s frustrating when you pay for, say, league pass and half the games you want to watch have key players on one or both sides sitting out for nonsensical reasons.
If they want to place more importance on the regular season, I’d reduce the number of playoff teams. I know they won’t do that for financial reasons, though. So maybe the solution is to change the first round playoff format to a 4-1-1-1 format? The top 4 seeds get four home games to start.
Appalachian Outlaw very interesting. I like it. Now that gives the regular season seedings some incredible meaning.
Surfer, I think they mentioned it above, not sure if it was in the original post, but these “in season tournament” games would be part of the schedule and only the last championship game would be an additional game I guess. So that part works out okay.
The worst travesty of the NBA season is that the NBA continues to force teams to play back to back games. If the NBA wants fans to pay attention to regular season games, the NBA needs to start by eliminating all back to backs so that players can be at their best, or at least much closer to their best.This latest proposal is typical of the NBA — The NBA worried about how to make more money through more window dressing and hype — while failing to show that player health and QUALITY of competition are more important than money.
This…is actually a pretty good idea.
or schedule back to backs only as series so that there is no travel between games. Example, Sixers and Knicks are in the same division so they always play each other 4x. Schedule one back-to-back in each city.
Cuban must have been drinking when interviewed. Maybe he should think about the idiocy of a league giving its most valuable picks to teams that try to lose based on how good they are at it and their luck at ping pong; not how the same league can do a 180 with meaningless picks and award preference for them based on winning. Honestly, using one of Cuban’s favorite drinking games to determine draft order would make more sense.
The NBA’s development issues aren’t going to be helped by expanding the draft. That would just give the league more opportunities to demonstrate their
ineptitude. The CBA needs to establishing better contractual options in signing non-1st round picks and undrafted FAs. That may create demand for non-1st round picks at some point, and, at that point, expanding the draft might make sense.