This season marks the start of the NBA’s first in-season tournament, imaginatively named the “In-Season Tournament”. Seriously, we couldn’t have called it the James Naismith Memorial Cup or something more creative? Whatever.
Basically how it works is like this:
- Every NBA team has been sorted into six different groups of five, with three groups per conference. For the Kings, their group consists of the Golden State Warriors, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs.
- Throughout the month of November, each group will play the other members of their group on designated nights until everyone’s played each other once. These games all count as regular season games as well. The Kings play the Thunder on Nov. 10th, Spurs on Nov. 17th, Timberwolves on Nov. 24th and Warriors on Nov. 28th.
- The winners of each group, as well as two wild-cards with the next best records will then advance to the Knockout Stage. The quarterfinals will take place on Dec. 4th & 5th and these games will also count as regular season games.
- The semifinals and championship will take place on Dec. 7th and 9th respectively at a neutral site. Las Vegas will be the inaugural neutral site this season. While the semifinals will count as a regular season game, the championship will not.
- For teams that don’t make the knockout stages or are eliminated during the knockout rounds, they’ll play two regular season games on the days the tournament isn’t going on, with those games yet to be scheduled. Every team will still play 82 games, aside from the champions and runners-up, who will play an 83rd (but again, that doesn’t count for the regular season).
- Winners of the tournament are set to get $500,000 apiece, with runners-up making $200,000. The NBA will also name a Tournament MVP and All-Tournament Team.
So it’s all a bit convoluted, but essentially this tournament aims to make the regular season a bit more exciting with a bit of extra meaningful games during the season. Will the players end up caring or playing extra hard in those tournament games? Will fans pay more attention to the NBA during those months when the NFL tends to have more of the nation’s attention? The NBA is betting on it helping at least a little bit, and I think they might be on to something.
The last major change the NBA made to the season was the inclusion of the Play-In Tournament at the end of the season for the last two playoff spots. While there was some initial trepidation and blowback, the Play-In Tournament has largely been a success so far. Combined with flatter lottery odds, there’s been less incentive for teams to tank than ever, and the tournament has provided some crazy highlights. Just last year, the Miami Heat narrowly avoided elimination in the Play-In Tournament, losing to the Hawks in the first game before defeating the Bulls in their second game. They then went all the way to the NBA Finals.
The In-Season Tournament also includes one of the best things in sports: Win or go home games. In the playoffs, any team can win one game but it’s much harder to take four off an opponent, so upsets are rarer. In a tournament like this, it’s much easier for big upsets to happen. We could also see teams that maybe aren’t in the playoff chase make big runs in the tournament simply because they did well in those group stage games.
All in all, I think the In-Season Tournament, although boringly named, should add a little bit of intrigue to a regular season that has largely been stale and lacking major excitement for many teams. I don’t think we’re at the point yet where teams are going to necessarily be going out of their way to try to win the tournament, but every tradition has to start somewhere. These games were going to be played anyway, now there’s just a little something extra about them.
In terms of relevance and interest I slot it right between the All-Star game and the Summer League Championship, which basically will mean no one will give a shit. It’s just same gimmick for teams to try and make more money while enticing coaches not to “rest” their stars in the early to mid part of the season.
If they are to keep it, I’d prefer some changes. Why not put it at the end of the season for no-playoff teams and the winners make the play-in slots? Maybe modify the current playoffs while also shortening the season and include all 30 teams in some kind of seeded tournament? Best of 3 first round, best of 5 second round, then get to the 7 game series at the end. End the regular season at the All-Star game break then a 30 team series based tournament.
Great–multi-millionaires with an opportunity to make more money.
Better idea: Let the G-League players play in these games with the NBA starters, and showcase them at the NBA level.
Can someone explain to me why people use the Kings’ opponents’ average scoring as a measure of the team’s defensive capabilities? The Kings are the top scorers in the league, so I am guessing they are playing at a faster rate than other teams. Therefore, opponents also will have more opportunities to score and, therefor, their average final scores should be higher. You could do an equation that would show what the Kings’ opponents’ average score would be if their scoring was at the league average. I think that would be a much better indication of how good they are at defense in relation to other teams in the league.
Offensive and defensive rating takes this into account already. It measures points per 100 possessions, thus eliminating the bias of pace you indicated. You are correct in saying average points scored would be a flawed stat which is why Offensive and Defensive Rating is used.
Not a fan of adding an extra game for 2 teams, who won more weighted games against some other random teams (who were on the schedule anyways,) for no actual reason.
I swear to god if the Kings make the in-season tournament only to have one of our top 3 guys go down for the season and ultimately miss the actual playoffs I’m gonna lose my actual shit.
Not a fan of this, at this point. Seems contrived.
As all non-natural things are.
There needs to be a better prize than just money. I feel like they should add something like a lottery pick slotted at pick #10 for ~3% chance of winning the lottery. This would mean 15 teams in the lottery and 31 overall first round picks. This would provide much more incentive to win those games, without outright handing a top pick to a good team.
The NBA essentially now allow NBA players to bet on there own team.
Win and get paid.
Maybe Lebron and Kyrie rest less now?
It will take is either one star to get injured and this thing falls apart.
Or – the teams just sit the stars.
Giving Paul George or Steph or Giannis or Fox and Ox another $1-2M seems shruggable at best for those guys. The Head Coaches and GMs must bleed from the bites of their tongues when asked about it.
I get the idea – make the first two months of the season more interesting as they compete with the NFL and the really good teams coast until January and then the ASG come about so they can make their seeding and playoff push. Gotta gets eyes on the telly so they can rate climb on their next negotiation.
I don’t think this will solve the load management problem, so I hope they don’t expect it to.
This is just stupid. Is it supposed to feel like the English FA Cup where there are completely separate leagues who can compete against each other mid-season? These are just games where teams that already play each other are designated as arbitrary tournament games.
Tank the Tournament!™
Badge Legend