People hated the fact that Adam Silver pushed to add a play-in tournament

[Tim Reynolds]

It's a ridiculous idea, and I still think it should go away.

Let's play 82 games, work hard to make playoffs, then make it all possibly get thrown out cause of one or two bad games at the end.

Get rid of it.

Get the 6th seed if you’re so worried about being eliminated in the play in.

The flip side of that argument: Get the 8th seed if you're worried about making the playoffs.

[KembaWalker]

It's gonna be pretty lame if some teams that earned their place in 7 or 8 organically get knocked out by some 9-10 team that sat their all star players all year till the end.

[CoachD]

The play in is stupid.

Teams that are 5.5 games behind 8th have a theoretical chance to eliminate a team that's busted their ass all year to be top 8...

Why not just skip the season and have a play in tournament?

[cgf]

It's a ridiculous idea, and I still think it should go away.

Let's play 82 games, work hard to make playoffs, then make it all possibly get thrown out cause of one or two bad games at the end.

Get rid of it.

*shrug* It's a tournament with rules that each participant knows before beginning the qualifying cycle; not some bait-&-switch that is kept secret from the bottom seeds until the last moment.

If a team doesn't have a strong enough qualifying campaign to make it in as anything higher than the 7th or 8th seed in their bracket, then why should they get 4 losses to be eliminated instead of 2? That's a privilege that more than a third of the league already gets and everyone knows what they need to do to earn it.

[JayMKE]

Actually seems like there are more people now who would prefer reducing the amount of playoff teams to increase to meaning of the RS, this was pretty niche position a few years ago. Why even have 7th and 8th seeds to begin with? Mediocrity should’t be rewarded and the top teams win the vast majority of the time.

Reducing playoff teams might make the regular season tournament viable

[cgf]

The play in is stupid.

Teams that are 5.5 games behind 8th have a theoretical chance to eliminate a team that's busted their ass all year to be top 8...

Why not just skip the season and have a play in tournament?

That sort of thing would be true no matter where you draw the line. If you wanted to argue that the top 2 seeds should get a bye and only 6 teams should qualify for the post-season tournament you could say:

"Having a 7th & 8th playoff team is stupid.

A team could be 5.5 games behind 6th & still be guaranteed a spot in the tournament.

Why not just skip the season and have one big bracket?"

[SkyBill40]

The play in is stupid.

Teams that are 5.5 games behind 8th have a theoretical chance to eliminate a team that's busted their ass all year to be top 8...

Why not just skip the season and have a play in tournament?

That sort of thing would be true no matter where you draw the line. If you wanted to argue that the top 2 seeds should get a bye and only 6 teams should qualify for the post-season tournament you could say:

"Having a 7th & 8th playoff team is stupid.

A team could be 5.5 games behind 6th & still be guaranteed a spot in the tournament.

Why not just skip the season and have one big bracket?"

Exactly. A slippery slope if there ever was one. You're not going to ever please everyone, so just make one rule and stick to it. Adapting it with the play-in idea was fine for the bubble but even then it was a bit half baked.

[sp6r=underrated]

The play in is stupid.

Teams that are 5.5 games behind 8th have a theoretical chance to eliminate a team that's busted their ass all year to be top 8...

Why not just skip the season and have a play in tournament?

That sort of thing would be true no matter where you draw the line. If you wanted to argue that the top 2 seeds should get a bye and only 6 teams should qualify for the post-season tournament you could say:

"Having a 7th & 8th playoff team is stupid.

A team could be 5.5 games behind 6th & still be guaranteed a spot in the tournament.

Why not just skip the season and have one big bracket?"

I'd greatly prefer eliminating the bottom 2 teams and just having a top 6. The NBA went to 8 teams in 1984. Only 10 times have these bottom 2 clubs won a series.

https://www.sportingnews.com/ca/nba/news/nba-playoffs-upsets-top-seed-warriors-mavericks-spurs-celtics/1n3tkomb1r0yr14j71o33nxfwf

I continue to believe people who hate the play-in tournament but like 8 teams per conference making the playoffs are just living in status quo bias.

We have nearly 40 years worth of data supporting the contention the bottom 2 seeds are cannon fodder.

Actually seems like there are more people now who would prefer reducing the amount of playoff teams to increase to meaning of the RS, this was pretty niche position a few years ago. Why even have 7th and 8th seeds to begin with? Mediocrity should’t be rewarded and the top teams win the vast majority of the time.

Reducing playoff teams might make the regular season tournament viable

Exactly, my preference order

1. 6 Teams Make Playoffs in each conference. Top 2 Seeds get byes for first round.
2. Play in tournament
3. Old best of 7

The play-in tournament is the equivalent of a bye for the top 6 seeds.

[pipfan]

The key is that it creates multiple thresholds. The Bulls/Cavs/Raptors are fighting to avoid the 7th seed
The other teams are fighting below them as well
great improvement

[Hoop Hunter]

Love the play-in! Kinda a NCAA tournament feel.

[sp6r=underrated]

People on this forum like to complain about the "meaningless" NBA regular season.

The key to thing to understand a lot of people on realgm don't like watching basketball if all the stars aren't playing.

Most of em who complain about the long RS would rather have a 50 game season in which Embiid plays every game than an 82 game season in which he only plays 67 games.

I don't get it but it is clearly an undercurrent to a lot of realgm posts.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

I'd rather make the draft a 30-team lottery and kill tanking forever. Imagine a world where every team is trying to win every game.

It kind of strikes me as wrong as their are basketball players retiring early, because some teams are trying to lose on purpose and they would contribute (on a bad team) to winning.

[ratul]

I like it. We don’t use treadmill team anymore and it discourages tanking while creating greater emphasis on the regular season.

[C3H6N6O6]

People were making fun of LeBron for not liking the play-in. Now people don't like the play-in as it is Lakers only hope of making the playoffs.

[bwgood77]

It's alright, particularly for teams in the 9-10 spots, but it's kind of ridiculous to play an 82 game season to eliminate 10 teams out of 30....while 20 move on to some sort of postseason.

It was kind of already slightly excessive that more than half the teams made the playoffs.

It's now 2/3 that get some sort of wildcard. In Baseball it was 4 teams made it until the mid 90s, then 8 until 2011 and 10 until now...where it is moving up to 12 teams out of 30, which has been a big increase and a lot of people probably don't like.

In football it went from 10 out of 32, to 12 up until recently, and now 14 out of 32. So now 43.75% of NFL teams make the postseason. 40% of MLB teams, and 66.7% of NBA teams.

It might have helped the tanking issue though, since if teams are in the 10-12th spots with like 25 games to go they still may have a shot.

[LivingLegend]

I like it. We don’t use treadmill team anymore and it discourages tanking while creating greater emphasis on the regular season.

Your discouraging tanking at the expense at costing 2 deserving teams a rightful spot in the playoffs.

The 7-8 seed shouldnt have to earn anything--they already did and took care of their business in the RS.

Its simply giving a second chance to 2 undeserving teams because the league wants to pound their chest about tanking for draft spots when they already solved that by altering the lottery odds per slot.

[NZB2323]

It's a ridiculous idea, and I still think it should go away.

Let's play 82 games, work hard to make playoffs, then make it all possibly get thrown out cause of one or two bad games at the end.

Get rid of it.

Get the 6th seed if you’re so worried about being eliminated in the play in.

The flip side of that argument: Get the 8th seed if you're worried about making the playoffs.

I just don't have that much sympathy for the 7th seed or 8th seeds. People say, "That's history, the 7th and 8th seeds have always made the playoffs," but that's just not true. 1984 was the first year the 7th and 8th seeds made the playoffs. 1977 was the first year the 6th seed made the playoffs. 1975 was the first year the 5th seed made the playoffs. 1967 was the first year the 4th seed made the playoffs.

And if a team gets the 7th or 8th seed they only need to win 1 of 2 games to make the playoffs. If you can't get the 6th seed and you go 0-2 in the play-in tournament then you can cry me a river with your tears and I will play the world's smallest violin for you.

[NZB2323]

I like it. We don’t use treadmill team anymore and it discourages tanking while creating greater emphasis on the regular season.

Your discouraging tanking at the expense at costing 2 deserving teams a rightful spot in the playoffs.

The 7-8 seed shouldnt have to earn anything--they already did and took care of their business in the RS.

Its simply giving a second chance to 2 undeserving teams because the league wants to pound their chest about tanking for draft spots when they already solved that by altering the lottery odds per slot.

Right now the Clippers are the 8th seed. They have a losing record and a negative point differential. That's not taking care of business. The Utah Jazz have taken care of business during the regular season and they won't have to play in the play-in tournament.

[Cubbies2120]

I whole heartedly agree with the sentiment behind it. I’ve been watching the NBA my entire life and I’ve gotten more and more disenchanted with the regular season as I’ve gotten older. It’s too long and meaningless, and many games become scheduled losses due to fatigue and injuries. The play-in adds a bit more spice to the end of the season.

All Star weekend should be the next thing to go. Haven’t watched it in at least 15 years. A mid season tournament that is competitive would be much better.

Agree with the first part of your post

Re: the second part, part of all-star weekend is also giving players the week and a half break from basketball.

If they do a midseason tournament, and do away with all star weekend, I think they should still give those ~10 days off so players have some sort of longer break. Either that or give teams a "bye week" similar to NFL.

[celticfan42487]

Yup it's still a dumb money grab that devalues the regular season