Woj: NBA wants to restart conversations on a mid-season tournament

[Nate505]

I've said it many times, but the only way this tournament will be fun is if the players go all out and make it like winning a championship.

Like do everything. Have a trophy, celebrate in the locker room with champagne and cigars, throw a parade, throw up a banner, give the players rings, etc.

[life_saver]

This will receive mostly negative reaction on realgm but imo it will be one of the best decisions Silver has taken if this is implemented. As time goes on, the importance of the mid-season trophy will increase. It will probably never match the allure of winning NBA title but it's still a good piece silverware to win...there are ton of fans who have never seen their fav team win any piece of Silverware in their entire lifetime .Every season, there will be lot of teams who have no chance of winning title and sometimes this can last more than a decade. A chance at winning silverwear can also help in keeping the fanbase engaged.

Just have a straight knockout tournament (no conferences) and give byes to both the top seeds. Will be lot of fun and any team can beat any team in a one-off knockout game. Lot of casuals who barely pay any attention during regular season will also be attracted towards this. People love single knockout game tournaments. If they can publicize it well, the Bracket Challenge can also become pretty popular. Unlike the NCAA bracket challenge, getting this one right is atleast somewhat realistic as there will only be 30 teams. Have good prize money (and maybe some draft compensation for the winners like SRP?). Really hope Silver can get this right. It has lot of potential

Excellent point regarding silverware. I think this is a great reason Silver wants to do this too (obviously the first is to make money).

I don't know how a knockout tournament works with scheduling though? What happens to the team that gets knocked out first? Do they just have a week or so off?

Not sure how much a tournament of say, 12 games during Nov/Dec (or would Jan/Feb be better)
People get keen at the start of the season and then fade in the middle, then come back around PO time.
I was thinking the

Perhaps the NBA moves towards a points based standings. There are plenty of models around the world in different sports. The tournament would be included in the RS standings, but be worth more points per win.
Just spitballing.

yes..you can organize this over a span of 2 weekends. Start on a Friday..Friday-Saturday for first round matches. Sunday-Monday for 2nd round matches, Tue-Wed for QF, Friday for SF and then have the final on Sunday. My preference would be to cut down the regular season games to 60-65, scrap All Star weekend and have a 2 week mid-season break (having the mid-season tournament and then an additional week break) instead of current break which is around 7 days.

[Swish1906]

The only thing i care about midseason is when this waaaay too long regular season finally ends and the playoffs begin...

Just another money grab to add more games

[Fencer reregistered]

I continue to think that if they want to do this, they need to find a way to make the tournament games count towards championship contention. For example, there could be a single-elimination tournament with games counting in the standings unweighted. (In that case, teams who go deeper into the tournament would wind up playing more games total over the course of a season.) More likely there would be a pool-play part followed by an elimination part; that could work too.

The arithmetic on all this would of course be easier with 32 teams rather than 30 ...

[LivingLegend]

The play-in sucks. This would be next level awful. Might actually lose me as fan...

You dont like the idea of fringe playoff teams battling it out to see who is going to get stomped into oblivion by the #1 seed superteam?

[Mr Puddles]

The play-in tournament has made the season a lot more interesting IMO (together with the changes made in lottery odds). There's 12-13 teams in each conference now really playing to win. Therefore I'm in favor of the NBA experimenting with something else as well.

Ideally, an end of the season tournament where teams play against a secondary league at risk of religation (and teams from the 2nd league promoting), like in many soccer leagues in Europe - but I know that idea has been discussed to death here and it will never happen. That would really keep the league interesting all year around though, and bad teams would actually have something to play for.

[Synciere]

We don’t know enough to know whether this is a good idea. The season is already long enough, but I’m almost always in favor of doing something new. It keeps the league fresh and rejuvenates the players and younger fans.

[maxpower8888]

Stop with this mid-season tournament idea already, literally nobody wants this.

[djsunyc]

alot of fans complain that the regular season can be mundane so silver is trying to do something different and then fans are complaining about that too before it's even fleshed out yet.

i applaud silver for trying to do some new things. why not? it doesn't change the fundamental end goal of winning a chip but this is a nice little break from an 82 game schedule.

[bearadonisdna]

Have all star break be at game 42 not game 60 or whatever .
Each half of the season will have more substance . All stars may be slightly watered down but then again they should tighten up the system anyways to keep guys like Wiggins from starting

[J_T]

Winner gets into second round of the playoffs.

[SNPA]

Throw a parade. Hang a banner. Wear a ring with pride forever.

Oh…

What’s that?

No one will do anything like that.

Hmmm.

Why do this stupid **** then.

All that will happen is games that don’t count towards the regular season record will be sat out by stars.

It’s dumb.

Someone stop Silver before he ruins this league.

[SNPA]

https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/265878/Adam-Silver-Hopes-Midseason-Tournament-Gives-Players-Teams-Fans-Something-To-Care-About

Adam Silver Hopes Midseason Tournament Gives Players, Teams, Fans Something To Care About
Adam Silver continues to lobby for an in-season tournament built into the regular season that uses the European domestic cups as a model. Silver hopes the tournament can generate more interest in the NBA during its regular season calendar and also offer teams another trophy to win.

"In terms of the midseason tournament, I think since we last talked I've morphed to call it an in-season tournament as opposed to midseason, only because as we're looking at different models, it may not fall right smack center at the middle of the season," said Silver.

"But the notion is, I've said this before, trying to steal a page particularly from European soccer where they have other trophies that they play for. The ideal would be to take nothing whatsoever away from the Larry O'Brien trophy, our championship trophy, but in what is increasingly a long regular season, particularly with how people's habits change over time. Getting people to sit down for two-and-a-half hours to watch a game isn't necessarily consistent with the way people watch sports or any events these days. And to say 'Let's find some games in the regular season', probably still within the same footprint of what we're operating in now, so the season would start roughly around the same time, end around the same time, but then maybe convert some of those regular season games into what we call a midseason tournament and begin a new tradition. Something that players care about, teams care about. Something to win. Again, not the Larry O'Brien trophy, but yet something probably secondary to that. Something maybe you'd see players go into that extra gear for that competition."

Seems its a matter of when and not if. I have mixed emotions on it. I just hope its done right and not gimmicky.

Holy ****. The level of contradiction and dumb in this statement is astounding. I thought Silver was way smarter than this. There’s a dozen holes in this logic. It’s embarrassing he thinks thinks. Wow. Just wow.

It’s barely a notch above the drunk guy at the end of bar.

“Bro- like they’d play for a trophy, not the real trophy but a trophy that’s kinda like it but new and not really the trophy. Like soccer brah. But different. And they’d play hard because it’s a trophy ya’ know what I’m saying. Yeah. That’d be cool. Fans would like it because ya’know they have short attention spans and like stuff. NBA could sell gear and ****. It’s a dope idea man.”

[CIN-C-STAR]

All the lottery teams play a single-elimination tournament for the #1 pick in the draft.
Now that would bring in viewers.

[MrBigShot]

alot of fans complain that the regular season can be mundane so silver is trying to do something different and then fans are complaining about that too before it's even fleshed out yet.

i applaud silver for trying to do some new things. why not? it doesn't change the fundamental end goal of winning a chip but this is a nice little break from an 82 game schedule.

Problem is that this wont solve that. Fans place so much emphasis on rings, what's the point to even bother playing and risk injury in a midseason tournament with no meaning behind it? Or even if the players do play, will they really put any effort into it?

[Lalouie]

does anyone see the the nba is turning itself into a circus,,,that it is trying to become the "Xgames of the olympics".

[djsunyc]

alot of fans complain that the regular season can be mundane so silver is trying to do something different and then fans are complaining about that too before it's even fleshed out yet.

i applaud silver for trying to do some new things. why not? it doesn't change the fundamental end goal of winning a chip but this is a nice little break from an 82 game schedule.

Problem is that this wont solve that. Fans place so much emphasis on rings, what's the point to even bother playing and risk injury in a midseason tournament with no meaning behind it? Or even if the players do play, will they really put any effort into it?

from my understanding, the regular season will be shortened but the tournament makes up those games.

[zeebneeb]

Cut 20 regular season games, and you got yourself a deal.

[JN61]

They are so desperate to hand LeBron more of those Mickey mouse championship trophies.

[JN61]

does anyone see the the nba is turning itself into a circus,,,that it is trying to become the "Xgames of the olympics".

It's already a circus. You can't defend jump shooters.