Still Stupid, But At Least Worth Trying

When the NBA announced that they would be debuting an In-Season Tournament this season, I was skeptical.  If I remember correctly, my exact reaction was, "Boy, that sounds incredibly stupid."  Well, now that we've reached the knockout round of the inaugural event, I'm slightly less skeptical.  I still think the entire idea is incredibly stupid, though.

The whole thing was the brainchild of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who's apparently been wanting to get something like this off the ground for a few years.  He was inspired by European soccer, which has their domestic cups and Champions League/Europa League during the week, with their league games on weekends.  Silver wanted to do something similar and incorporating into the regular season, similar to what the WNBA does with the Commissioner's Cup.  Thus, the NBA Cup was born.

In 2021, the WNBA started the Commissioner's Cup, which has been a huge success.  The WNBA Commissioner's Cup is straightforward and easy to understand.  Each team's first home and first away game against their five conference opponents are designated as Commissioner's Cup games.  The team in each conference with the best record in those 10 games (which also count for the regular season standings) advance to a neutral-site championship game (which does not count for the regular season).

Meanwhile, the NBA In-Season Tournament is anything but straightforward.  Each conference was divided into three groups of five.  But instead of just doing it by the existing three divisions of five, teams were randomly drawn based on last season's standings.  And they only play four tournament games, one against each opponent in their group (two at home, two away).  The three group winners and a wild card advance to the quarterfinals, while the 22 teams that don't make the quarterfinals play their final two regular season games against other teams that didn't qualify.

Here's the thing about the In-Season Tournament scheduling that makes no sense, though.  They designated seven Tuesday and Friday dates in November as days when only tournament games would be played.  But teams also played random non-tournament games mixed in.  They could go one tournament, three non-tournament, two tournament, another non-tournament, then their last tournament.  Are you as confused by that last sentence as I am?  And, since there were seven dates to play four games, not everybody played every night.

With groups of five, somebody in each group would obviously have to be off on tournament nights.  What they should've done, though, was have five tournament nights (not seven), with two games in each group on every tournament night.  Every team would get the one bye, but have a game on each of the other four nights.  And it would be five consecutive games, too.  That way the tournament is a designated part of the schedule without random other games mixed in between.

I'd say that you keep all of the tournament games on the same nights, but I understand that would cause an issue for TNT and ESPN.  So, maybe instead of designated days (Tuesday and Friday), you designate two full weeks for the tournament.  Teams don't necessarily all play on the same night, but they know that they'll play all four of their In-Season Tournament games consecutively within that window (and it doesn't affect TNT and ESPN's normal schedules).  Also, why not just do their existing divisions?  Wouldn't that be easier?

Then there are the tiebreakers, which might be the most convoluted part of the entire thing.  Head-to-head is straightforward enough, but the teams that finish second in each group (and thus going for the single wild card in each conference) don't play each other, so you can't use head-to-head.  Instead, they use point differential, which led to teams leaving their starters in at the end of blowouts so that they can run up the score.  In any other situation, that would be considered terrible sportsmanship.  During the In-Season Tournament, though, it's encouraged.  Which goes against everything that's ingrained in how NBA players play the game.

Now, if and when the NBA expands to 32 teams, that solves both of those issues.  We all know from our years of watching the World Cup that 32 teams gives you a nice and easy four groups of four (which could be division- or standings-based).  They could then go to a six-game group phase where you play a home-and-home with the other three teams in your group and the four group winners advancing to the quarterfinals (no wild card, thus no tiebreakers used to determine the wild card).

Next, let's talk about those hideous courts.  I get the idea from a marketing standpoint.  The design template they chose, however, was incredibly ugly.  And, multiple players complained about them being too slippery, which is something that easily could've been anticipated seeing as the entire thing is paint!  It also seems like an unnecessary expense to have everybody change the paint job on their home floor for just two games, only to have to switch it right back to the regular design again.

Although, while this tournament isn't my cup of tea, I understand that some people are enjoying it.  Mike Breen is one of them.  He said that he's "never had this much fun" broadcasting early-season games and thinks that the point differential tiebreaker is actually a good thing since it brings a different level of excitement with teams keeping one eye on their own game while simultaneously keeping track of what's happening somewhere else.

That was actually one of the biggest reasons why Silver was so gung-ho about this tournament.  The NBA season is long.  They play 82 games in six months, plus playoffs.  It can be a drag.  November/early December is the part of the season that drags the most.  The idea behind playing the tournament now is to inject some life into a part of the season that people don't normally care about.  In that regard, it's been a success.  (After all, it's even got me talking about the NBA!)

There's also no doubt that this will be a financial windfall for the NBA.  Especially once they begin selling naming rights to the tournament itself and/or the various different elements of it.  (I do like "NBA Cup" as the name of the trophy, but they have to come up with something better than "East Group A", etc.)  Likewise, the neutral site semifinals and final in Las Vegas were a brilliant move, not just so that nobody has homecourt advantage, but to make sure they maintain a presence in the city (once the A's move, the NBA will be the only Big 4 league without a team in Las Vegas).

So, even though I still think the idea of an in-season tournament is dumb and unnecessary, I can't write it off as a complete failure, either.  And, let's not forget, this is just Year 1.  I'm sure that moving forward, they'll make some changes that improve it.  And it'll either become a regular part of the NBA calendar or it'll be quitely dropped and eventually forgotten.  So, was it an experiment worth trying?  Yes.