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NBA reveals long-awaited format, groups for new in-season tournament
(www.thescore.com)
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this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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The purpose is to get people excited about midseason basketball. Many fans don't watch any games or care about their teams until the end of the season when the playoffs approach. By then, many teams will be out of contention or obviously outmatched.
But this doesn't change any of that.
Maybe not. We'll see if anyone cares about a midseason tournament. I'll be curious to see how seriously the players take it. Like will the middle third franchises rest some players and use it to develop some guys? Since the games won't count, and they have little hope of winning, will it be treated like summer league games?
All the tournament games still count as regular season games so there's no change in incentive to rest guys. The only one that doesn't count as a regular season game is the tournament championship and they win a half million bucks if they win so they're trying to incentivize the players to play.
It does for me.
I think you'll see a non-zero change in the group stage but it will ramp quickly up. No one gives two fucka about FA cup early stages but top premier league soccer teams consider it just slightly less important than winning the league. I don't think it gets there or that the NBA was aiming for it but hey, don't underestimate the ability of owners to use marketing for fans and incentives for teams to make it important.
The NBL in Australia tried this a couple of seasons ago and nobody gave a shit. It was quickly abandoned.
It's certainly not going to do anything to entice the "why watch the game when I can catch highlights on Twitter" crowd, and as with the proper championship most teams will have zero chance.
The other difference is that winning the Premier League just means finishing on top at the end of the season. The NBA already has playoffs.