Mid-season tournament being discussed...how can we make it worth it for everyone.

[Parataxis]

Read on Twitter

Winner gets home court advantage throughout the playoffs regardless of standing?

Players get a bonus for each game played in the tournament?

Give extra lottery numbers. Winner gets 50 extra numbers (equivallent to a 4.5% extra chance of winning the draft lottery). Runner up gets 20. The two other quarter finalists get 15 each.

Those are numbers that mean that teams WANT to win the tournament, but also won't completely unbalance the draft lottery (it's still less than a 1/20 chance of winning if you're not otherwise a lottery team).

[Plutonashfan]

Read on Twitter

Winner gets home court advantage throughout the playoffs regardless of standing?

Players get a bonus for each game played in the tournament?

Give extra lottery numbers. Winner gets 50 extra numbers (equivallent to a 4.5% extra chance of winning the draft lottery). Runner up gets 20. The two other quarter finalists get 15 each.

Those are numbers that mean that teams WANT to win the tournament, but also won't completely unbalance the draft lottery (it's still less than a 1/20 chance of winning if you're not otherwise a lottery team).

Wow this a pretty idea. The players may not care but you better believe that a GM or coach would be all in.

[HeatIn5]

this idea works so much better with 32

[SNPA]

Read on Twitter

Winner gets home court advantage throughout the playoffs regardless of standing?

Players get a bonus for each game played in the tournament?

Give extra lottery numbers. Winner gets 50 extra numbers (equivallent to a 4.5% extra chance of winning the draft lottery). Runner up gets 20. The two other quarter finalists get 15 each.

Those are numbers that mean that teams WANT to win the tournament, but also won't completely unbalance the draft lottery (it's still less than a 1/20 chance of winning if you're not otherwise a lottery team).

Wow this a pretty idea. The players may not care but you better believe that a GM or coach would be all in.

And since it’s the players actually playing…

[Roy T]

Stupid. Stop trying to implement soccer and ncaa BS into pro sports.

Soccer is a pro sport.

[Ruma85]

Read on Twitter

Winner gets home court advantage throughout the playoffs regardless of standing?

Players get a bonus for each game played in the tournament?

Give extra lottery numbers. Winner gets 50 extra numbers (equivallent to a 4.5% extra chance of winning the draft lottery). Runner up gets 20. The two other quarter finalists get 15 each.

Those are numbers that mean that teams WANT to win the tournament, but also won't completely unbalance the draft lottery (it's still less than a 1/20 chance of winning if you're not otherwise a lottery team).

as long as it doesn’t add more games, I’m all for it

[Ugalde]

love it. eventually it’ll just be another accolade our future GOAT can put on his resume

[wegotthabeet]

Silver is such an reactionary idiot

He’s worried about players not playing during the regular season so why would this give them any incentive to play? It’s just more meaningless games

The only way to get players to care about the regular season is too cut the teams in half that make the playoffs then good teams won’t have cushions to be able to sit their stars all the time.

But that would take revenue from the owners so it’s never gonna happen

I agree with most of what you say here, but not the last point. If only 8 teams made the playoffs that would solve a lot of the issues with the regular season, player's resting etc... One way to make up for lost revenue from one less playoff round is to expand on the play-in tournament idea.

Regular Season remains 82 games, but divided into two types of games.
Regular Season games = 50 games (1 home, 1 away) vs. 25 non division teams.
Regular Season Division games = 32 games (8 home, 8 away) vs. division rivals.

32 Division games determine the 6 division winners, each of which get a playoff spot.
50 Regular Season games determine the 7th playoff spot. Winner gets home court throughout the playoffs.

Play-in Tournament replaces the current first round. 16 remaining teams with the best Regular Season + Division games record enter play-in tournament. Lower seed has to win twice to eliminate the higher seed, higher seed only needs to win once to eliminate the lower seed. This is just one of many different ways this tournament could play out.

1. Memphis vs. 16. LA Lakers | 2. Boston vs. 15. San Antonio | 3. Philadelphia vs. 14. Washington | 4. Denver vs. 13. NO
5. Minnesota vs. 12. New York | 6. Chicago vs. 11. LA Clippers | 7. Brooklyn vs. 10. Charlotte | 8. Cleveland vs. 9. Atlanta

Using the 2022 Standings:
Regular Season Winner: Phoenix
Division Winners (based on division record): Atlantic: Toronto | Central: Milwaukee | South East: Miami | South West: Dallas | North West: Utah | Pacific: Golden State
Play-in Winner: Boston

Playoffs = 8 teams (1 Regular Season Winner + 6 Division Winners + 1 Play-in Winner) seeded based on 82 games record.

1. Phoenix | 2. Miami | 3. Golden State | 4. Dallas | 5. Boston | 6. Milwaukee | 7. Utah | 8. Toronto

The first 50 games determine 1 playoff seed, the final 32 games all vs division teams determine the next 6 playoff teams with the last playoff team determined by the play-in winner.

[BK_2020]

love it. eventually it’ll just be another accolade our future GOAT can put on his resume

Exactly. Chet will have so many more Magic Johnson trophies and Mid-Season rings compared to Wilt.

[cjmcallist]

I’m down for a tournament. Put it before the trade deadline and let the winner get guaranteed home court playoff spot. Qualify for the tournament by being in the top three teams in your division.

Do away with the all star voting and replace it with all tournament team. Kick off the tournament with the 3 pt contest, dunk contest, etc.

Then, contending teams can decide to go for it at mid-season if they want, and then cruise the rest of the way. LBJ can secure home court after 50 games? Heck yeah.

Tanking teams can stack up for the tournament then trade away the winning players. Imagine OKC loading up, winning the tourney and ending up with home court and a top 3 pick. Lol. Funny thought, but appeals to all.

The All Tourney team becomes important because it determines max contracts (in lieu of the all star game).

[Time for Change]

I think it’s a bad idea, but here’s some rewards that could make it interesting. Use one or more of them. They range from silly to stupid, haha.

The prize pool is the luxury tax revenues, each round of the top 8 the remaining teams split a quarter of the tax money 50/50 owners/players.

For each round you win you get an extra coach’s challenge per game for the rest of the season, including playoffs.

Remove 4 time outs per team, for each round you win you get an extra timeout per game, for the rest of the season, including playoffs.

For each round you win, for the rest of the season, including playoffs, you start the game with a free throw (i.e. winner of the tournament starts each game with 4 free throws, runner up gets 3 FTs, etc).

Winner picks their first round opponent in the playoffs regardless of seeding.

For each round you win your draft slot moves up one spot.

Winner can permanently swap divisions with one other team, the following year.

[RoyceDa59]

Wait until the first key allstar on a contender gets injured in this tournament.

I’m all for more meaningful games, though. Reg season w load management gets boring.

[Vampirate]

I think an end season tournament makes way more sense.

The teams that are eliminated from the playoffs before the playoffs begin would get their own playoffs basically.

I think fans would be up for this idea because you can at least see how your team does in a playoff like setting if they are eliminated from the real playoffs.

Players would go for this because it'd give them the ability to show their skills and give teams a decent assessment on who to keep moving forwards.

A best of the rest playoffs after the regular season is over would be gimmicky but it'd be way better than a mid season tourney where every team only cares about either making the playoffs or playoff position.

[Schiltzenberger]

Horrible idea, although 10 times better than the play-in idea.

The ideas being thrown around for rewards are crazy, stupid, nonsensical garbage.
Guaranteed HC advantage in the playoffs??? wtf?... it's not a video game. What if a team that finishes outside the play-in wins?
Adding lottery balls? so a team can make the playoffs and win a championship, and because they also won the mid-season tournament they get balls in the lottery???? do you people even think before typing?
Moving up the draft for winning???? ffs

My god, I can't believe so many people need all these unnecessary bells and whistles to keep them interested. Grow up!

[Hoppy1]

Mid-season tournament means mid-season break for older established stars.

[amcoolio]

Once again, this is no different than a regular season stretch in January- February.

The stars already play in those games, so they will play in the tournament.

This isn't adding games, its replacing boring regular season games in January and February (once again, that most everyone in the NBA plays anyway, for stats)

[Johnny Bball]

Paying players a million dollars more to be on the favourite just trashes parity even more and quite frankly circumvents the salary cap.

It's a **** idea. Vets can make 3.9 instead of 2.9 and will just collude even more to go to the favourite.

And somebody wants to give the winner home court so they can coast and rest the last half of the season? What a joke. Or the winner and likely the favourite gets to add more players (Cap/tax) or picks?

Just hold the playoffs after 30-35 games and have two seasons year. Its gives them what they want anyways. Just dilute the whole damn sport.

[bon]

The fact there isn’t a clear proposed incentive already lets you know how pointless this is.

[liquidswords]

Besides money, which is the obvious, I feel like every other "reward" is gimmicky. What is the point of this midseason tournament REALLY? To increase the amount of meaningful games? Feels like they can do other things besides a tournament (i.e. address load management)

[Ruma85]

Besides money, which is the obvious, I feel like every other "reward" is gimmicky. What is the point of this midseason tournament REALLY? To increase the amount of meaningful games? Feels like they can do other things besides a tournament (i.e. address load management)

Money is the only reason i see as well.