Notice Report: NBA sets framework for in-season tournament, eight-team knockout stage

There are ways to make the tournament actually make it interesting, like playing for lotto odds and such. But playing for “to-be-determined prize” sounds like a tournament for nothing.

 

Why would players care to play for lotto odds? So somebody can come in and try to take their jobs?

 

Haha. I remember the year Westbrook was that dumbass. On your previous point, I wasn’t talking in terms of world hunger. I was talking in the world of sports. It’s all neutral. We make up what matters.

 

Lotto odds wouldn’t inspire the players. Money and/or playoff seeding would.

 

I think people are making too big of a deal of this. If the players are playing the same amount of games and the league can make some of those games a little more meaningful... where is the harm??? That's the question I keep coming back to. At first might the midseason tournament feel small? Yeah, it probably will. However, as its tradition gains tenure it will start to mean something. It won't be the Finals but it will mean something to these players who are the ultimate competitors.

If teams can work their asses off and win two titles in one season that will mean more than teams that can only win the Finals going forward. That does add an extra wrinkle of interest and competition. Again the question is what does it hurt and what (as @KSF-ERIC pointed out) makes a midseason tournament any less or more silly than any of the other competitions so many of us enjoy???

 

(Facepalm)

 

Right now I don't really see a need for it. I am ok with change, as I like the play in games.
But this seems stupid. However, I need to hear everything explained in detail before I dismiss it.

 

Maybe one reason people get more excited about nfl games is that every game is cery important.

 

On this i can agree. This is entertainment and it's really all about having fun and watching your team win.

 

Not being a soccer guy, I don’t understand the significance of the in season tournament. If you win, who cares? If you do care, why?

 

Sometimes there are miracles in such tournaments and teams from small towns make it really far and play against the biggest teams in the country. It's fun to watch an underdog make a cup run. However, there is no way for any of that to be replicated within US sports leagues. MLS participates in such a tournament, but the league doesn't take it too seriously, but some individual teams do though.

 

Would a mid season Cup play be before or after March Madness?
I heard that MM generates more ratings and dollars than NBA playoffs?
The NBA is a Marketing Machines with aggressive rating & revenue goals. They want some of that Madness viewership and sponsors.

 

So would they still do an NBA All Star Game?

 

If you look at the Shams tweet it seems like it's an early season tourney. He says the "Cup" games will go through November and then eight teams will play a single elimination tourney in December. I've read somewhere else that they are trying to have the championship game on or around Christmas so maybe teams will get to play a little bit of regular season ball before the "Cup" games start but maybe this is meant to really super charge the beginning of the season ratings. Then mid season you have All Star and trade deadline that will drum up interest. Then the race for the playoffs, followed by the playins and finally the playoffs themselves.

The only thing that seems weird is that you would have to have a two game gap where the NBA wouldn't know who your opponent is. 8 teams would play four games in the first round of the tourney and 4 teams would play two games in the second round, then the tourney championship would an extra game for the final two teams. That's not too big of a headache really.

 

For bragging rights?

 

I have always thought they should do the all star game & festivities after the NBA finals.

 

I'm a "soccer guy" and still don't understand the in season tourneys.

 

I don't think the players would want that. Not the ones who just got done with a long Playoff run or the ones who have been on vacation for 2 months.

 

Nobody would go or watch..... NFL's Pro-Bowl on Line 1.