Woj: Play-In Tournament Set to Become Permanent Fixture for Future NBA Seasons

[Sixerscan]

I dont understand why the 7 or 8 seed is something so sacred that it needs to be earned over the regular season.

As far as I remember, no 7 or 8 seed has won the title, the last team I recall making the finals was the Knicks after a 50 game season 20+ years ago, not sure if anyone has even made the conference finals since then.

It’s just not that important of an accomplishment. So yeah, if the NBA wants to turn those spots into a TV event that’s fine.

[iggymcfrack]

"I love it b/c it makes the Regular season games worth more!"

Except for you know , those 82 games the teams are required to play leading up to the play-in.
The team with the most wins in the conference through 82 games should be in the playoffs over a team with less. No RS games should be worth more in terms of playoff entry than others.

How does this help the league? Adding arbitrary rules/values to the last few games of the season to increase "excitement" is so shortsighted and immature.

Since the first time this junk was implemented we missed out of Curry/Warriors being in the playoffs despite them having 1 more win and 1 less loss than the Grizz. The Grizz went on to get 4-1'd by the Utah Jazz.

Most normal fans can agree Curry is far more fun to watch than the Jazz kids and would have likely made it a more competitive series against Utah. But I'm sure glad we got the oh soo "exciting" play-in tournament game! That surely makes up for a worse team getting nearly swept by the #1 seed.

All RS games should be equal. 1 win is 1 win. The team with more wins/less losses should be in the playoffs.

Those 82 games prior to the play-in are exactly what are helped most by the play-in tournament. The fatal flaw of the NBA regular season was always that anyone talented enough to be a contender for the title was pretty much guaranteed to be at least a top 8 seed so the regular season never had any real drama. Top 6 though? That’s not a guarantee. If you have to be one of the 12 best teams in the league to ensure your way in, that’s a little tougher. Now all of a sudden, some of the teams will real prospects like the Nets and Clippers last year have to sweat a little bit. Now the regular season games matter to do more than just separate off teams that were completely hopeless.

As for the Warriors/Grizzlies thing, the Warriors won one more game in the first 72 and for that accomplishment, all they had to do was win one out of 2 games to make the playoffs. The Grizzlies had to win 2 out of 2 including the second one on the road against the Warriors. How can you say Memphis didn’t want their playoff spot? They had a better record by the time the playoffs started. You just don’t like it because the team you wanted to get in didn’t happen to make it.

Also, imagine the playoffs started right after 72 games that year. What makes you think the Warriors would have done any better in the first round than Memphis did? Do you think the 2 performances that lost to the Lakers and Griz would have gotten them anywhere but down 0-2? They probably would have lost 4-1 as well. If Golden State were actual contenders that year, they would have managed to go 42-30 to secure a top 6 seed.

[Lunartic]

"I love it b/c it makes the Regular season games worth more!"

Except for you know , those 82 games the teams are required to play leading up to the play-in.
The team with the most wins in the conference through 82 games should be in the playoffs over a team with less. No RS games should be worth more in terms of playoff entry than others.

How does this help the league? Adding arbitrary rules/values to the last few games of the season to increase "excitement" is so shortsighted and immature.

Since the first time this junk was implemented we missed out of Curry/Warriors being in the playoffs despite them having 1 more win and 1 less loss than the Grizz. The Grizz went on to get 4-1'd by the Utah Jazz.

Most normal fans can agree Curry is far more fun to watch than the Jazz kids and would have likely made it a more competitive series against Utah. But I'm sure glad we got the oh soo "exciting" play-in tournament game! That surely makes up for a worse team getting nearly swept by the #1 seed.

All RS games should be equal. 1 win is 1 win. The team with more wins/less losses should be in the playoffs.

Those 82 games prior to the play-in are exactly what are helped most by the play-in tournament. The fatal flaw of the NBA regular season was always that anyone talented enough to be a contender for the title was pretty much guaranteed to be at least a top 8 seed so the regular season never had any real drama. Top 6 though? That’s not a guarantee. If you have to be one of the 12 best teams in the league to ensure your way in, that’s a little tougher. Now all of a sudden, some of the teams will real prospects like the Nets and Clippers last year have to sweat a little bit. Now the regular season games matter to do more than just separate off teams that were completely hopeless.

As for the Warriors/Grizzlies thing, the Warriors won one more game in the first 72 and for that accomplishment, all they had to do was win one out of 2 games to make the playoffs. The Grizzlies had to win 2 out of 2 including the second one on the road against the Warriors. How can you say Memphis didn’t want their playoff spot? They had a better record by the time the playoffs started. You just don’t like it because the team you wanted to get in didn’t happen to make it.

Also, imagine the playoffs started right after 72 games that year. What makes you think the Warriors would have done any better in the first round than Memphis did? Do you think the 2 performances that lost to the Lakers and Griz would have gotten them anywhere but down 0-2? They probably would have lost 4-1 as well. If Golden State were actual contenders that year, they would have managed to go 42-30 to secure a top 6 seed.

The Warriors had a better record prior to the play-in. They had less losses and more wins. The team with the better record should be in the playoffs, not the team that lost more games and won less.

I'm a firm believer that Curry and co. would have played much better against the Jazz. The same Jazz team that got utterly dismantled by a Kawhi-less Clippers. Curry would have abused Gobert similarly to the Clippers guards but better. Suggesting that a top-15 player of all time wouldn't be able to perform better than Ja Morant is just strange.

[GeorgeSears]

I always felt that the play-in tournament should only be observed for teams that are within 1-2 games of each other.

It's unfair to ask a team that's 7-8 games better than another team to play against them for a spot in the tournament.

[iggymcfrack]

"I love it b/c it makes the Regular season games worth more!"

Except for you know , those 82 games the teams are required to play leading up to the play-in.
The team with the most wins in the conference through 82 games should be in the playoffs over a team with less. No RS games should be worth more in terms of playoff entry than others.

How does this help the league? Adding arbitrary rules/values to the last few games of the season to increase "excitement" is so shortsighted and immature.

Since the first time this junk was implemented we missed out of Curry/Warriors being in the playoffs despite them having 1 more win and 1 less loss than the Grizz. The Grizz went on to get 4-1'd by the Utah Jazz.

Most normal fans can agree Curry is far more fun to watch than the Jazz kids and would have likely made it a more competitive series against Utah. But I'm sure glad we got the oh soo "exciting" play-in tournament game! That surely makes up for a worse team getting nearly swept by the #1 seed.

All RS games should be equal. 1 win is 1 win. The team with more wins/less losses should be in the playoffs.

Those 82 games prior to the play-in are exactly what are helped most by the play-in tournament. The fatal flaw of the NBA regular season was always that anyone talented enough to be a contender for the title was pretty much guaranteed to be at least a top 8 seed so the regular season never had any real drama. Top 6 though? That’s not a guarantee. If you have to be one of the 12 best teams in the league to ensure your way in, that’s a little tougher. Now all of a sudden, some of the teams will real prospects like the Nets and Clippers last year have to sweat a little bit. Now the regular season games matter to do more than just separate off teams that were completely hopeless.

As for the Warriors/Grizzlies thing, the Warriors won one more game in the first 72 and for that accomplishment, all they had to do was win one out of 2 games to make the playoffs. The Grizzlies had to win 2 out of 2 including the second one on the road against the Warriors. How can you say Memphis didn’t want their playoff spot? They had a better record by the time the playoffs started. You just don’t like it because the team you wanted to get in didn’t happen to make it.

Also, imagine the playoffs started right after 72 games that year. What makes you think the Warriors would have done any better in the first round than Memphis did? Do you think the 2 performances that lost to the Lakers and Griz would have gotten them anywhere but down 0-2? They probably would have lost 4-1 as well. If Golden State were actual contenders that year, they would have managed to go 42-30 to secure a top 6 seed.

The Warriors had a better record prior to the play-in. They had less losses and more wins. The team with the better record should be in the playoffs, not the team that lost more games and won less.

Prior to the play-in, the Warriors had ONE more win and ONE less loss. After the play-in, the Warriors had one LESS win and one MORE loss. After the play-in, the team with the better record that had more wins and less losses WAS in.

I'm a firm believer that Curry and co. would have played much better against the Jazz. The same Jazz team that got utterly dismantled by a Kawhi-less Clippers. Curry would have abused Gobert similarly to the Clippers guards but better. Suggesting that a top-15 player of all time wouldn't be able to perform better than Ja Morant is just strange.

I didn't say Curry wouldn't perform better than Ja. I said the WARRIORS wouldn't perform better than the Grizzlies. LeBron was much better than Durant in 2017, I expected him to outperform KD in the Finals, and he did, but I still bet a lot on the Warriors laying odds because they were a better TEAM. LeBron's a top 1 player of all-time and he was a better player than Ja this year, but that didn't mean the 33-49 Lakers would do better in the playoffs than the 56-26 Grizzlies.

[JN61]

Gotta try get LeBron and curry into playoffs next year so they have to continue this tradition.

[JN61]

I always felt that the play-in tournament should only be observed for teams that are within 1-2 games of each other.

It's unfair to ask a team that's 7-8 games better than another team to play against them for a spot in the tournament.

If they are that many games better they probably should win easily other team.

[wegotthabeet]

The number 1 flaw with the play-in tournament is that the winners have 0% chance at winning the title in a league where it's championship or bust.

I would prefer if the top 3 teams in each conference made the playoffs after the regular season then the next 16 teams enter a end of year tournament for the 7th & 8th seed. That way the winner(s) would actually have a shot at winning the championship instead of getting beat down in the first round. Would also prevent stars from sitting out 20 games per year.