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

[TravisScott55]

NBA wants more revenue? Stop the NBA game from being a 3 point chuck fest.

[Couch Potato]

I don't even understand a mid-season tournament. What does it do and what's the incentive? I know the play-in gave a few more slots to playoff hopes and a little less tanking. But mid-season to do what? Extra games on top of a regular 82 game season or am I missing something?

[JasonStern]

As a fan of a team that has no realistic chance of winning a 'chip anytime soon, I can see the allure to winning a tournament true contenders don't care about. The banner would look nice next to our Vegas Summer League tournament champion banner. Plus it would be better than bringing back H-O-R-S-E at the all-star game.

[Cactus Jack]

Overall, I am very pro this tournament. I liked the idea of making this U24 or something like that, basically a cup for up and coming teams of the league. Fans always debate each other whose team has best young talent, well, this would settle it.

And its not srimmage, its a trophy. You thinking its meaningless because it doesnt exist yet, so to your perspective it has no meaning. but when you introduce a trophy, every player and fan will still want to win, thats the point of sports. Yes, it would never have the same prestige as O'Brien trophy, but no cup is, but it is still a trophy team and fans can be proud of.

Hate it. But I'm not a fan of mid-season cup tournaments in European football either btw. They're worthless.

Want more intrigue? Just cut the regular season down to 58 games (2x29). Problem solved.

[CS707]

The only way I like this is if it’s a compromise to the networks to reduce the regular season schedule and teams can play anymore signed to their organization including G Leaguers.

[Couch Potato]

Overall, I am very pro this tournament. I liked the idea of making this U24 or something like that, basically a cup for up and coming teams of the league. Fans always debate each other whose team has best young talent, well, this would settle it.

And its not srimmage, its a trophy. You thinking its meaningless because it doesnt exist yet, so to your perspective it has no meaning. but when you introduce a trophy, every player and fan will still want to win, thats the point of sports. Yes, it would never have the same prestige as O'Brien trophy, but no cup is, but it is still a trophy team and fans can be proud of.

Hate it. But I'm not a fan of mid-season cup tournaments in European football either btw. They're worthless.

Want more intrigue? Just cut the regular season down to 58 games (2x29). Problem solved.

I'm sure the players would love to have less games. But doubt they wanna give some money back either. Also less games means you would have to play longer to break some very big records. I don't see it happening.

[kodo]

I don't even understand a mid-season tournament. What does it do and what's the incentive? I know the play-in gave a few more slots to playoff hopes and a little less tanking. But mid-season to do what? Extra games on top of a regular 82 game season or am I missing something?

There is no incentive other than the trophy. Players will also get cash, but I doubt it will be meaningful given how much they make. It's comparable to the ASG, it has no impact on the title chase but it's important from a bragging rights standpoint to many players, teams, and fans.

I think that's the main problem with the idea. We already have a meaningless, bragging rights event in the middle of the season, the ASG. And it also gives out cash to winning players.

It's important to Silver because it allows him to sell the rights to other content providers like Amazon, since it's a new thing and not the regular season which is already sold. Basically Adam Silver is consistent, he just wants to milk as much monetization from the product as possible.

[xdrta+]

I don't even understand a mid-season tournament. What does it do and what's the incentive? I know the play-in gave a few more slots to playoff hopes and a little less tanking. But mid-season to do what? Extra games on top of a regular 82 game season or am I missing something?

When it was discussed before, the plan was to cut it from 82 to 78 reg season games.

[syrus3]

Adam Silver needs to go.

[YogurtProducer]

Shocking, real life fans love these things an realgm nerds hate it.

Have some fun you guys

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I really don't see the point of it.
The play in was great, though, and ai think they can build on that.

Sent from my Nokia 3210 using RealGM mobile app

[Mirotic12]

Most leagues around the world have Cup tournaments. It's actually kind of odd that the NBA doesn't. Because it's especially common for basketball leagues to have one.

[druggas]

Someone needs to stop Adam Silver before he ruins the NBA completely.

Might be too late.

[Mirotic12]

How about a beginning of the season tournament too?!

Yeah those are very common in Europe also. They call those the Super Cup.

I'm against it. MJ, Shaq and Kobe never got to play in this tournament, and in the future lack of these tournament MVP's might hurt them on paper when comparing them to current or future greats. Don't create award or trophy's for things MJ didnt have a chance to compete for.

Total non-issue. Pretty much every European basketball league has Cup tournaments. And I've never seen Cup wins and MVPs ever used to judge a European player's legacy. The only time anyone even mentions it is if it's an NBA fan talking about European players, and confusing Cup titles and Cup MVPs with leagues and league MVPs.

The Cups are seen for exactly what they are, a quick single elimination set of games. No player is getting rated based on a Cup tournament. That would be ridiculous.

[SpiderX1016]

Please stop making so many changes. I'm ok with the play-in already. No more.

[clyde21]

The problem with the RS is that the PS matters a lot more, and the better teams do not take it that seriously. So a lot of those things you suggested wouldn't make the RS healthier in any capacity, those just sound like things you want to make the NBA better in general.

i mean that's true across the board for all american sports...but it seems to be much more of a prevalent problem in the NBA...and everything I said is with the intention of making the RS better, either directly or indirectly which I specifically pointed out in my original post because some of this on the surface don't seem like they would change the competitiveness of the RS long term but they actually would.

For instance, defensive rules...that has nothing to do with the RS still. Teams still coast regardless if you can be physical or not. You might like the product more because the rules are different, but that isn't relevant to the core problem of what makes the RS "boring". The play-in tournament has a specific use and different goal, that is totally different from say, removing max contracts.

i disagree...I think calling the RS just like how you call the POs defensively is important...when people know that defenses are allowed to get away with more in the postseason than in the regular season, that feeds into the 'PS is way more serious than the RS' culture...the entire culture of the RS has to be changed and that includes reffing and making it as defensively competitive as the PS.

For instance, I agree that there shouldn't be conferences or divisions.....but that also has nothing to do with making the RS "better". It might make the on court product better overall, but again, how does that change that the RS is still a glorified pre season?

this will also indirectly make it better because it will make the race for the POs in general much tougher. you can't look at this in a vacuum, you look at this in combination of the other assumptions like lower # of games, lower # of teams that make the POs, teams wanting to get the top 2 seeds so they can get a bye week, and flattening the odds of the lotto 1-16...all of this will essentially make each RS more important and more valuable overall.

The things you mentioned that would help the RS

1) not winning the top pick twice in a row. Though teams would still tank in a pretty similar fashion none the less. I think it's a good idea, but I think tanking is not as big of a problem as good teams just not caring much about the RS (because if they don't care, why should anyone else?)

tanking is not a HUGE problem, at least not as big as many make it out to be, but it's still part of the equation that has to be solved...we need to make the RS more competitive for all the teams as much possible, and removing some of the inherent incentives for these teams to 'rest' good players has to be included.

2) Lowering the number of RS games. They've already had to lower it by 10 games this season and it didn't really matter. Lowering RS games does make them more important, but it's unrealistic so it's not even worth mentioning. I mean you're talking 100 of millions of dollars of revenue lost, probably more to go from 82 games to 60.

lowering the number of games while EXANDING the PO pool (the play-in is essentially an expanded version of the playoffs) is not what I am talking about...of course that will have the opposite effect...people who think if you have MORE teams MORE opportunities to make the POs it makes the RS more competitive...I think it's the other way around.

if you lower the # of games to 60, it has to happen WITH lowering the number of teams that make the playoffs to 14 AND flattening the odds in the lotto 1-16.

3) Giving byes. This does fix the problem that the top teams don't give a rats ass about the RS, but at the same time, if you think people are complaining about play-in games, people would certainly complain that they don't get to watch a series from the top seeds. Even though 1 vs 8 seed is boring, people do want to see superstars (usually on the 1 seed) play.

i think a lot of teams would actually fight to have one of the top 2 seeds for that 7-10 days off to get rest/get injured players back...i didn't mention this in my earlier post but I would advocate for a 3-game series in the 1st round...which would also IMO incentivize top teams to care more about seedings because all of the sudden in 3-game series u are way more likely to get upset than in traditional 1v8 7-game series.

[Goose egg]

Worst commissioner in sports

[RRR3]

Silver is never going to stop meddling with a product that was excellent when he inherited it. It’s mind boggling. He should be canned.

[Black star]

I'm in favor of this. Outside of dramatically reducing the number of games, which is a nonstarter on both the player and owner side, there is no way to make the RS more compelling. Too many games, teams realized that rest is more important than a few extra wins, and players learned there is no downside to phoning it in or even skipping a game or a stretch of games because legacies are built in the post season.

This trophy would mean exactly as much as the NBA and the players decided it meant. If Silver markets it as a permanent tentpole of NBA achievements and speaks with the players to ensure he gets buy in from them I don't see why it wouldn't work. Players like competitive ball they just can't sustain it over a regular season. Wouldn't Dame or CP3 or any star who hasn't gotten over the hump yet want a league wide trophy they can win?

The finals MVP was created in 1969 twenty years after the league was started yet people don't treat it like a gimmick. Is anyone unable to rate Bill Russell because he never got to earn one but Shaq does?

[trickshot]

Shocking, real life fans love these things an realgm nerds hate it.

Have some fun you guys

Dude the aversion to change is over the top especially if it's why people are dissing Silver. I have my reservations but people should at least wait to see a proposed format before crapping on it. It may end up having no effect on the season but I'd also like to see if the Nba can add any exciting incentives to it because the regular season has become so formulaic and meaningless with players openly downplaying its relevance