In season tournament official
- Thread starter bosockboy
- Start date
So are we hanging banners for the November-December regular season champions? This is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever seen.
The kids will love it. Got to think about the future and not be wedded to outdated concepts of the past. Like just one season champion. Maybe if the December tourney is a hit the NBA can do it again in February. You can never have too many champions.
This feels like another CBA thing that in practice helps the majority due to the winnings, but at the same time gives the stars no reason to care, thus hurting the players that could almost double their earnings for the year if they win. I don't know how unions work legally, but this new CBA seems to make sure stars keep getting the bag, but squeeze the much bigger middle class due to the second apron
This won't change one thing about load management strategy. Adam Silver is the only person on earth excited for it. The owners will like the additional revenue from Amazon but I doubt they care if they win.
I called the Play-In game a gimmick..and I was wrong, its worked better than planned.
This tournament will work.
The NBA has come a long way over the last 50 years thanks to Magic & Larry
This tournament will work.
The NBA has come a long way over the last 50 years thanks to Magic & Larry
i know times are changed but this would been better over the all-star break to replace the all-star game can do this 2 ways
A the 24 best teams play slingnle em over 4 days starts on sat ends on tuse 3 ON 3 games to 30
B the top 12 teams play over 2 days 3 on 3 finals is 5-5 champion on mon
A the 24 best teams play slingnle em over 4 days starts on sat ends on tuse 3 ON 3 games to 30
B the top 12 teams play over 2 days 3 on 3 finals is 5-5 champion on mon
I know very little about this event, but I echo NYCSox in that I am not sure what the point is, aside from generating money. An end of the season playoff to decide the ultimate champion, sure. That I get.
But what is the point of winning this tournament? Are the winners some sort of champion?
If I was the management of the Boston Celtics, LA Lakers, Golden State Warriors, Chicago Bulls, I would want to be the first team to ever win this tournament.
i understand that but from a coaches view i dont want my best players getting hurt for a $ grab by the commish
I love it. But I love soccer/football, so I get it... or at least what 'it' is trying to be.
More silverware is better.
Hell, someday, the final 4 could be the Warriors, UNC, Seattle Spark and Kauno Žalgiris .. that would be epic.
More silverware is better.
Hell, someday, the final 4 could be the Warriors, UNC, Seattle Spark and Kauno Žalgiris .. that would be epic.
I've always thought that soccer does a better job versus North American sports of giving teams more things to compete for and fans more things to get excited about. There are several things that can make a Premier League club's season a success, domestically and in Europe, versus one in the US. Even the fight to avoid relegation makes the games the crap teams are playing interesting and important. In the US, we have this entirely unhealthy obsession with anything short of a championship being a failure, which, in 30+ team leagues, guarantees a lot of disappointment. There are many incentives for bad teams to tank which don't exist in soccer.
That said, there are reasons that these things in European soccer have importance and meaning. The FA Cup existed before the leagues did, all the way back to 1871, 17 years before there was a league in England. Similarly, playing for your country has always been a much bigger deal in Europe, dating back to the first international matches in the 19th century, versus in the U.S., where the concept hardly exists outside of the Olympics. These competitions grew up organically over time because fans liked them. They were not imposed from above by the already existing powers, more recent innovations like the Champions League and Premier League notwithstanding - and even those were evolutions from prior structures.
The recent attempt to create a European Super League foundered because it was seen by fans as an entirely illegitimate money grab. The effort by the NBA to create an in-season tournament or by MLB to have its own version of the World Cup are not quite as brazenly greedy, even if money is a driving factor, but imposing them from above and forcing the competitions to exist in ways that don't really incentivize the players and their bosses to give maximum effort undermine the value of the "championship" and reduce fan interest and participation from the best players.
Without underlying fan interest, there's no reason for these competitions, and that kind of interest cannot be generated by fiat from a league office. Is there anybody asking for a NBA Cup, other than owners desperately grasping for new revenue and a few TV execs? Similarly, no one wants a European Super League other than club owners and TV.
It's interesting that U.S. clubs and their European counterparts each look out over the ocean at the other and want what they do not have. The NBA wants a Cup-style tournament, MLB wants meaningful international play. Both want ways to minimize tanking. The big European soccer teams would happily rid of domestic cup competitions (in which they hardly try anymore, at least until late in the contest) and international football (which is a distraction and gets their players hurt), and would love a fixed league where TV revenues are guaranteed for years at a time, regardless of on field performance. The grass (or money in this case, I suppose) is always greener.
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Where is this extra injury risk coming from? All but 2 teams will play 82 games. The finalists will play one extra game.
Here's what I'm seeing:
1. All group stage games will be regular season games between paired opponents that would have been scheduled anyway, just moved to those dates in November and December.
2. Scheduling all group stage games on Tuesdays and Fridays means that all the teams will be playing on those two nights, and will last two weeks.
3. By scheduling them on just two nights a week, if the league doesn't try to squeeze in additional games in between, could give all the players some rest in between games. It might also make the rest of the regular season schedule more frenetic.
4. Eight teams make the knockout stage, four advance to the semifinals, and two to the championship. All teams that didn't make the knockout stage get two additional regular season games among each other. So, starting with 80 regular season games that include these tournament games, 22 teams will have 82 games, quarterfinal losers 81 games (unless they get a game added later), semifinal losers 82 games, and finalists 83 games, so the impact to the regular season schedule is minimal.
5. The knockout stage would have the tendency to weed out inferior teams, although with the talent gap between teams being relatively small, there are potential upsets that could lead to surprise teams emerging, plus the single-elimination format could result in some dark horse champion, like the Miami Heat or the Kyrie-led Mavs winning this tournament.
6. And scheduling it in November and early December keeps the other big "events" intact: Christmas Day, MLK Day, and All-Star Weekend. This is the NFL model, although some might quibble about Thursday Night Football being an event worth watching.
This could be fun. I would love to see how this plays out.
1. All group stage games will be regular season games between paired opponents that would have been scheduled anyway, just moved to those dates in November and December.
2. Scheduling all group stage games on Tuesdays and Fridays means that all the teams will be playing on those two nights, and will last two weeks.
3. By scheduling them on just two nights a week, if the league doesn't try to squeeze in additional games in between, could give all the players some rest in between games. It might also make the rest of the regular season schedule more frenetic.
4. Eight teams make the knockout stage, four advance to the semifinals, and two to the championship. All teams that didn't make the knockout stage get two additional regular season games among each other. So, starting with 80 regular season games that include these tournament games, 22 teams will have 82 games, quarterfinal losers 81 games (unless they get a game added later), semifinal losers 82 games, and finalists 83 games, so the impact to the regular season schedule is minimal.
5. The knockout stage would have the tendency to weed out inferior teams, although with the talent gap between teams being relatively small, there are potential upsets that could lead to surprise teams emerging, plus the single-elimination format could result in some dark horse champion, like the Miami Heat or the Kyrie-led Mavs winning this tournament.
6. And scheduling it in November and early December keeps the other big "events" intact: Christmas Day, MLK Day, and All-Star Weekend. This is the NFL model, although some might quibble about Thursday Night Football being an event worth watching.
This could be fun. I would love to see how this plays out.
This is where I'm at.
Sports are for fun. This could be fun. If it's not fun, the league will iterate it until it gets fun.
After that iteration is complete, the amount of fun we have during the regular season will be higher.
Since I like fun, this sounds like a good deal to me.
I wonder if winning the "Double" will be a thing going forward (over the next 20yrs)?
FWIW this tournament should hold a lot more value to hardcore fans than All-Star Weekend
FWIW this tournament should hold a lot more value to hardcore fans than All-Star Weekend
The FA Cup includes clubs from all levels, not just the Premier League. This is like having a mini NBA tournament instead of just the playoffs. To be the same the NBA would have to include G league teams.
I suspect this "Double" will have posted odds and be a fun bet and be very profitable venture for the underwriters.
So can we just call this the Las Vegas Bugsy Siegel Holiday Classic.
It's high time Bugsy's contribution to sport and gambling and Las Vegas be recognized.
This in season tourney (The Bugsy) is real basketball, counts in the standings,, so presumably will hold more interest than the ASG.
You are correct
Everything sports-related has to be looked at through the Media rights $$$ and the Gambling $$$ (especially when they plop it down in Vegas).
I do feel dirty watching Adam Silver deliver the fattest pitch in sports ownership history for Team LeBron.
...and play some games in the G league's gyms! Imagine an NBA team playing in that high school gym in Portland, Maine?
I was whatever about it until I found out that the players were overwhelmingly in favor of the tournament. These dudes are competitors, they’ll play hard in this.
Will be a lot of fun, IMO.
Will be a lot of fun, IMO.
One of the iterations that I'm sure Silver has discussed with other leagues is getting European teams involved at some point. However, he needs proof of concept so here we are.
Sure it's artificial stakes, but the stakes are marginally higher than ordinary regular season games in December. Isn't that a good thing for fans?
For me, if the Cs are playing, I'm watching. I mean I just spent an hour watching Cs Summer League yesterday. Whether it's a tournament or just some regular season game doesn't really matter to me but hopefully it will be interesting.
But most of the games in this are regular season games. There's really no extra wear and tear. And yeah, there's a trip to Vegas, but I seriously doubt NBA dudes are gonna be upset about that.
We should have the NFL do this so that the Colts will have some more banners to hang.
An NBA sponsored international 8-team (whatever) tourney w/ 4 NBA teams (with a play-in to get in) and 4 Internationals (Euro/South America) would be so much more fun and meaningful than an all NBA best team tourney to determine the champ on a random Sunday night in December in Vegas.
Ratings would be massive worldwide.
The only risk to the NBA is if one of their teams loses.
I think this is going to rule.
People are asking what the problem being solved for is. The problem is that 82 regular season games in a row with no texture gets boring. Having something like this in the middle, just to be different if nothing else, will make things more interesting. And if you don't need anything else to get you up for game 37 on the schedule then good for you, but I don't think you're most people.
I suspect the players will be into it, the commentators will hype it, the league will push it, and the end result will be better vibes than anyone expects based on just watching a promo video in July.
People are asking what the problem being solved for is. The problem is that 82 regular season games in a row with no texture gets boring. Having something like this in the middle, just to be different if nothing else, will make things more interesting. And if you don't need anything else to get you up for game 37 on the schedule then good for you, but I don't think you're most people.
I suspect the players will be into it, the commentators will hype it, the league will push it, and the end result will be better vibes than anyone expects based on just watching a promo video in July.
I'm onboard with this being awesome.
I think they should find a way to mix 4-8 college teams in as well. Sure it's David vs. Goliath, but we've seen a 16 knock out a 1 seed. College teams get to use the college 3 point arc.
I think they should find a way to mix 4-8 college teams in as well. Sure it's David vs. Goliath, but we've seen a 16 knock out a 1 seed. College teams get to use the college 3 point arc.
This. I don't get the "this is terrible/going to suck/who cares?" responses given we haven't seen how this all works yet. I prefer to reserve my contempt for post-investigation but we are a marketplace of ideas so...
It may suck or it may not. It is certainly worth trying. I will watch and hopefully it will be great and add excitement to the regular season.
Hey, I’m driving the bandwagon on the “life is short, enjoy what you enjoy” train. So I’m certainly not telling people what to, or what not to, be excited about.
Someone upthread mentioned the NBA spitting the year into 2 championship-granting seasons and I’d be all for that. There’s no reason that sports leagues only crown one champion a year other than that’s the way it’s always been.
I’d be down with the NBA running a 35 game regular season, followed by a playoff, from October thru February. Then doing it all again from April thru August.
FWIW, I read this thread several times and hadn't realized - despite several references to all of the games being "regular season games" - that all of the tournament results except the championship game count toward the NBA's normal regular season standings. It took me being pointed to an article on NBA.com before that clicked with me, probably because so many people here have been talking about teams fielding reserve players and worrying about injuries to their stars and wanting to include G-League teams. Just thought I'd note that in case anyone else hadn't fully grasped this aspect of the competition.
I haven't read up on it in full, but generally in a tournament, there are stages - like the quarterfinals, semifinals, etc. And the further you go, the more games you play. How would they handle the games played imbalance if they're going to count for the regular season?
Every team knocked out in the group stage will have two regular season games added to their schedule (which are currently labelled as "TBD" and presumably will be scheduled on the fly somehow). The four teams knocked out in the quarterfinals gets one regular season game added to their schedule. That gets every team to 82 games - except for the two finalists, who will each play 82 games counting toward the regular seasons standings and one game (the tournament final) which won't count toward the standings.
https://www.nba.com/news/in-season-tournament-101
Basically they will decide who you play on DEC 4-9th based on how you finish group play.
Quarterfinals are the 4th and 5th, winners play on the 7th.
Teams that don't advance play on the 6th and 8th (losers in the quarters also play the 8th)
The Championship is on the 9th and isn't a regular season game.
This is where I am. The whole thing feels kind of silly, but I'm expecting to be proven wrong pretty quickly.
This is a one week tourney to crown a winner of a handful of games in the semi vacuum created before the college football bowl games start. It's programming. To equate this money grab, and that's what it is, to the winner of a 82 game season and multiple post season series is ridiculous. Imo to do so only devalues the real NBA championship. Unless and until they expand this to incorporate European or SA teams for global club bragging rights, this really is no different than watching a regular season game.
This probably won’t be great but it’s not like it is coming at some great cost. Basketball hits a real “we’re just waiting for the playoffs zone” so trying to spice it up is worth a shot.
I'm sure I'll watch when I can, and the games should be at least marginally more interesting than some random Nov/Dec games. Still feels contrived and kind of dumb, but I guess we'll see.
Wouldn't be the first time I ended up enjoying something contrived and kinda dumb more than I expected.
Wouldn't be the first time I ended up enjoying something contrived and kinda dumb more than I expected.
This was called the McDonald's Championship and it ended after the 1999 lockout.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_McDonald's_Championship