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

[wegotthabeet]

Securing a playoff spot or seeding in a midseason tournament is literally the opposite of making the RS mean more, the team that wins that can load manage even more being secure in their place. The only reward that wouldn't cheapen the rest of the RS or the postseason would be a draft pick or maybe some sort of cap exemption or idk but that doesn't mean too much to players/coaches in the moment, making a situation where bad teams or teams that coasted the RS can benefit from a midseason tournament is 180 opposite direction of what they want to do. Money? lol.

If there was 8 playoffs teams then every RS would be a dogfight and the non-playoff teams would start treating their games against the true contenders as their playoffs. This is the only real solution but Silver does the opposite again with the play in essentially expanding the playoffs to 2/3rds of the league. It's just a straight up joke, greedy money grubbers who don't GAF about the sport. Man I miss David Stern and I never thought I'd say that.

I like idea of only 8 teams making the playoffs, but would you go with top 8 teams in the league make the playoffs or top 4 from both the East & West if it were up to you?

Generally there's about 3 to 6 real contenders in any given year, so 16 playoff teams + 4 play-in teams does seem like overkill. Biggest issues cutting back to 8 teams is making up for lost revenue of the 1st round + losing the fan / player engagement if the playoffs seem to far out of reach too early in the season. This is where a play-in or mid/end season tournament could actually be an intriguing idea rather than just money grab gimmick that no one cares about. The play-in now is just made up of teams that are first round fodder.

Regular Season: top 7 qualify for the playoffs
Play-in Tournament: 8 to 15 seeds qualify. winner gets the 8th playoff spot.

Have all 8 play-in teams play one another once, 7 games total. Best record advances to 2nd round. Basically the top 7 teams get a 1st round bye and the play-in becomes the new 1st round. It also guarantees 3 or 4 home games for each team where they could charge 1st round prices.

Playoff Teams (2022): Phoenix Suns | Memphis Grizzlies | Miami Heat | Golden State Warriors | Dallas Mavericks | Boston Celtics | Milwaukee Bucks

Play-in Teams (2022): Philadelphia 76ers | Utah Jazz | Toronto Raptors | Denver Nuggets | Minnesota Timberwolves | Chicago Bulls | Brooklyn Nets | Cleveland Cavaliers

[skones]

Seed it by standings from the previous season (a second chance of sorts for your asterisk bois) and make it single elimination.

[TwitterFingers]

Mid season tournament seems weird. I get the league wants to create more interest in the regular season, but this ain’t if cheif

[Ugalde]

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.

yupp. it’ll just be something new and fun. who’s going to be the first player to win the mid season tournament and a ring.

[damanick10]

Whoever wins the tourny gets a trip to Cancun mid season for two weeks and each game missed is an automatic W. You're welcome Silver.

[alphatron10]

I think if they implement this garbage, the teams who get invited or qualify or whatever crap it is, should just refuse to play in it. Imagine the 8 teams that qualify just don't show up. That would be hilarious

[jpengland]

You have to both reward players, and teams.

Honestly, id go for 60m to split between the players and the team gets a draft pick somewhere in the top 10.

Then you'd see people taking it seriously and within a couple of years it would become a real badge of honour.

[andyhop]

Whats the appeal of playing at a neutral site? So they can gamble in Vegas or get more Disney money? Its just dumb and greedy.

You can sell off the rights to host the games to whichever City wants to host them

[Big Lob]

This is such a dumb idea

[SerialChiller]

So pointless and dumb I just don't get it...

[MrPerfect1]

We can't

You definitely can if you make the reward attractive enough. For example:

Whoever wins the Midseason Tourny gets 1 of thd 2 Finals spots. The winner of the end of year playoffs gets the other. Those 2 teams play for the Chip.

*If the same team wins both Tournys then no need for the Series betweenbthe 2 Champions since it's the same team

Sorry but that’s one of the worst ideas I’ve heard

You should reread before responding to a post since you totally missed the entire point. Did I ever say that was a good or bad idea? The post was in response to whether or not you could make them reward meaningful enough for players to care.

You cannot possibly believe that players wouldn't give 100% if it guaranteed them a Finals spot for winning.

Additionally, just saying "that idea isn't good" is an extremely weak argument to make without listing reasons why you believe that to be the case. Both aspects of your comment were without value (misunderstood the point of the post and then could not even offer 1 single reason to back up your misunderstanding)

[luvstar]

Winner gets 5 wins added to their total season wins. This will affect their standings if we go by win percentage when playoff seedings happen.

[mszymko]

Why not at the beginning of the season? They could play for the statistically easiest regular season schedule based on the touny results. An algo would determine the schedule post tournament.

[Tor_Raps]

It's hard to judge without knowing what the incentives are because that will truly determine how serious players/teams will take it. There would still be an 82 game schedule with the Tournament games subtracting from it.

The team incentives are easy to do but what can actually be given to players, other than cash, that will make them care enough to go all out here? Players are already load managing at the end of the season even if it means the team drops in playoff seeding so it'll have to be more than just that too.

[FreeThrowLine]

You definitely can if you make the reward attractive enough. For example:

Whoever wins the Midseason Tourny gets 1 of thd 2 Finals spots. The winner of the end of year playoffs gets the other. Those 2 teams play for the Chip.

*If the same team wins both Tournys then no need for the Series betweenbthe 2 Champions since it's the same team

Sorry but that’s one of the worst ideas I’ve heard

You should reread before responding to a post since you totally missed the entire point. Did I ever say that was a good or bad idea? The post was in response to whether or not you could make them reward meaningful enough for players to care.

You cannot possibly believe that players wouldn't give 100% if it guaranteed them a Finals spot for winning.

Additionally, just saying "that idea isn't good" is an extremely weak argument to make without listing reasons why you believe that to be the case. Both aspects of your comment were without value (misunderstood the point of the post and then could not even offer 1 single reason to back up your misunderstanding)

You should quit while you’re behind and it’s quite ironic that you’re asking me to re-read and insinuating I’m the one that didn’t understand the topic and question…

The OP was discussing a mid season tournament and asking “can we make it worth it for everyone”

My response was that we can’t, you however believe we can and your argument for that was some messed up suggestion that includes a potential scenario that you don’t even have a finals series

What kind of argument would you like me to waste my time making to try and convince you that the winner of a mid season tournament should be guaranteed a finals spot?

That’s such a ridiculous suggestion it doesn’t require a breakdown of why it’s a bad idea.

Thanks for your time though

[MrPerfect1]

Sorry but that’s one of the worst ideas I’ve heard

You should reread before responding to a post since you totally missed the entire point. Did I ever say that was a good or bad idea? The post was in response to whether or not you could make them reward meaningful enough for players to care.

You cannot possibly believe that players wouldn't give 100% if it guaranteed them a Finals spot for winning.

Additionally, just saying "that idea isn't good" is an extremely weak argument to make without listing reasons why you believe that to be the case. Both aspects of your comment were without value (misunderstood the point of the post and then could not even offer 1 single reason to back up your misunderstanding)

You should quit while you’re behind and it’s quite ironic that you’re asking me to re-read and insinuating I’m the one that didn’t understand the topic and question…

The OP was discussing a mid season tournament and asking “can we make it worth it for everyone”

My response was that we can’t, you however believe we can and your argument for that was some messed up suggestion that includes a potential scenario that you don’t even have a finals series

What kind of argument would you like me to waste my time making to try and convince you that the winner of a mid season tournament should be guaranteed a finals spot?

That’s such a ridiculous suggestion it doesn’t require a breakdown of why it’s a bad idea.

Thanks for your time though

You should give up since your entire premise is demonstrably wrong. Saying that "we can't" make it worth it for everyone is just comically absurd.

Imagine a scenario where each player on the winning team would get $100 mil/player. You still yhink they wouldn't care? Trying to imagine that players would not care about a $100 Mil Bonus Check or a Spot in the Finals is ludicrous

[wegotthabeet]

Why not at the beginning of the season? They could play for the statistically easiest regular season schedule based on the touny results. An algo would determine the schedule post tournament.

Sounds like the G League Showcase cup.

Maybe if they reduce the regular season to 62 games then this could make more sense. This tournament idea sounds like they'd be exhibition games anyways so why not just extend the exhibition games for a few weeks and combine it with this tournament idea. Have the Finals on Christmas eve then have the regular season start on Christmas day. 10+ year vets won't care about winning it, but player's on rookie deals and fridge guys trying to break into the league would.

1. Exhibition Games / Showcase Cup: 14 games minimum - 18 games maximum
2. Regular Season: 62 games
3. Play-in: 1-2 games
4. Playoffs: 4x best of 7

[Sofia]

We can't

You definitely can if you make the reward attractive enough. For example:

Whoever wins the Midseason Tourny gets 1 of thd 2 Finals spots. The winner of the end of year playoffs gets the other. Those 2 teams play for the Chip.

*If the same team wins both Tournys then no need for the Series betweenbthe 2 Champions since it's the same team

Legit the worst idea I’ve seen on the general board. Worse than assfalt ONBA elementals or Nate on Shaqs shoulders

[Clyde Frazier]

Haven't skimmed the thread so maybe I'm wrong but I can't see the appeal for fans at all. And while I'm not one of them, I know plenty of fans are in favor of a *shorter* season.

As for the players... outside of significant $ I see no way to entice them. It'd still be all about the playoffs.

[FreeThrowLine]

You should give up since your entire premise is demonstrably wrong. Saying that "we can't" make it worth it for everyone is just comically absurd.

Imagine a scenario where each player on the winning team would get $100 mil/player. You still yhink they wouldn't care? Trying to imagine that players would not care about a $100 Mil Bonus Check or a Spot in the Finals is ludicrous

Man you come up with some ridiculous and completely unrealistic scenarios to try and make your argument. Why don’t we make it $300 million each and they get to breathe under water too?

Have fun in this fantasy land, your suggestions are terrible