This is exactly the kind of thing we can win. https://basketball.realgm.com/wiret...re-Group-Play-Over-First-Two-Months-Of-Season Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic has reported additional details on how the NBA's In-Season Tournament will work beginning next season. According to sources, a group stage will play out during the first two months of the regular season. Two days of each week will be used only for those games that account for the group stage. Teams in each conference will be split into three groups of five, but they will be determined by a random drawing out of pots based on previous season record. The six teams with the best records in each group will go on to the knockout round, as will a wild-card team from each conference that finished second in its group. The knockout rounds will be single-elimination and will also count toward the regular-season records of each team, except for the final. Adam Silver has also said teams will wear different uniforms for the games.
What a phenomenal waste of time, effort, and risk of injury. Kind of like the All-Star game. And the Olympics.
If I understand it correctly, the group stage is just regular season games that are also counted towards the tournament seeding. No extra risk there.
Sounds awesome! I think in 10 years it'll have a lot of prestige and be the second biggest accomplishment to a season after a title.
Why would the players and coaches care? There needs to be some kind of reward. I was thinking the winners should get an automatic 8th seed for the playoffs. It doesn't guarantee they make the playoffs. They would still have to win the play-in games. It combines the intrigue of the play-in with the in-season tournament. It won't mean much for the good teams, but it could mean a lot to a team like the Trail Blazers or Thunder etc. Of course if the winners of the tournament end up with a seed higher than 8th, they get that seed.
It's still regular season games. So at the least it'll have the same impact as the other 82 games. Wouldn't be surprised if the NBA eventually gives the winner HCA or something, but it's fine to wait on that until we have a few years of seeing how it works.
They are the same as regular season games. How is there more risk of injury because they are called group/tournament games???
You don’t get it. Are you saying players will care less about regular season games that are also called tournament games. I guess you didn’t read the first post. Btw- I believe the winners get more money.
They get more money and these guys are competitors. If there’s something to win, they’ll want to win it. You better believe Michael Jordan would’ve wanted to win it every year of his career, esp the chance to be the first! That man took preseason seriously.
It's an accomplishment. I understand that it would be new but in 5 seasons it will carry weight with everyone except the most stubborn curmudgeons. I'm not saying that the fifth in-season title will carry weight at that time, I'm saying that all of them will. The reason why the players (especially the players on contenders) will care is because in 5 seasons a team that wins the in-season tourney and the Finals will be looked at historically as a more dominant and better team than a team that just wins the finals. These are serious competitors, give them something to win that the league calls meaningful and they will try to win it. Oh and before it actually has that weight that 5 or so seasons will give it, it will be the shiny new thing and guys will want to be the in-season tourney MVP.
It's single elimination like March madness. Every game is a winner takes all game like a game 7. This has a lot more variance so many teams that wouldn't have a chance of winning a 7 game series can win a game or more. It's earlier in the season so players and teams that play at a high level year round are rewarded, as opposed to only April-June mattering. Only 1 of 30 teams wins a title each season. There's been some awesome teams that have not won a championship over the decades, and this would be another way to recognize and watch their greatness. 82 identical games is way too many and very boring. This tourney would add new stretches of the season ramping up for tourney, actually playing early stages, playing final stages, then returning to the remainder of the regular season. Remember the "tourney" in the bubble where we saw Dame go off on repeated win or go home games. Those may be the best Dame moments after 0.9 and WCF playoffs. This would give us double the "postseason" chances to witness great players like Dame over their career.
I'm sure a team could but I think with the group stages and then the run they'd have to go on to win it, the in season tourney winner will be a damn good team and would be a contender. Now if there were significant injuries right after the in season tourney then I could definitely see a team winning it and then tanking.