LAS VEGAS — The NBA is hoping for buy-in for its newest and arguably most ambitious endeavor, the in-season tournament slated to begin next season.
Buy-in from the players, coaches and fans — all hoping they’ll care. The risk is the reverse happening, that by implementing pool play similar to a soccer format which will culminate in a championship on Dec. 9 in Las Vegas, a message will be sent that the league itself doesn’t care about early-season basketball.
The play-in fits right into the rhythm of the regular season, while this is a lot more disruptive. The prize money for each player could be an incentive to curb the load management — hard to explain given early-season games haven’t produced much wear and tear anyway — but it’s clear the NBA is looking long term and not just in the immediate here.
“There’s the question of the ‘why’ and whether it’ll work or not,” Wasch said. “Most general managers didn’t necessarily care about that. What they cared about was, this isn’t gonna take away from my team’s chase of the [championship]. And so it can’t be materially disruptive in any way. We talked about versions where there was long breaks in the season to play this, and GMs thought that was too far.
“Then that will obviously enter to the benefit of general managers, coaches, players, you know, through BRI ,” Wasch said. “So, our ability to explain why this was so important as a new tentpole for the league, combined with a minimally disruptive approach that we’ve taken is really what got folks on board.”
They haven’t discussed an Elam Ending or incorporating international teams into this setup quite yet, but with Silver and his affections for other sports, nothing can be counted out. The NBA hasn’t been afraid to mess with things on the edges, such as the All-Star Game format, which Wasch used as a “perfect example” in getting both players and fans to care about in 2020.
What will determine this as a true success will be the matchups. If there’s an extra December helping of the marquee teams we only see match up twice a year, or having the likes of LeBron James and Stephen Curry go at it an extra time outside of the normal schedule, people will flock to the TV screens just for the novelty and curiosity of it.
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