Written by Jonathan Peter on September 13, 2022.
Recent news dropped that NBA is planning on implementing an in season tournament and it could start as early as the 2023-2024 season. The framework for the proposed tournament is above in the Shams Charania tweet or here is a link to an article from CBS Sports.
There has been a lot of pushback against this idea and rightfully so. The details which have been released are unclear and there is no particular reason for why a midseason tournament is even necessary. Well, that may be a slightly untrue.
The NBA is in a bit a of predicament. Ever since the 2020 pandemic, the league has been concerned about lower viewership numbers, even though they bounced back last season. In addition to this, “load management” of star players has factored into league’s decisions as well. The league wants to incentivize teams to play their star players instead of sitting out games and they hope new challenges, like the tournament, can help with that.
Unfortunately, this plan does not seem sufficient to satisfy the NBA’s craving to improve their product. The tournament is not going to shrink the season. All teams are still going to have to complete an 82 game season. This is one of the biggest sticking points for why stars do not play every single game. Teams who have aspirations of being competitive in the playoffs want to preserve their important players because of injury risk. The proposed tournament does not appear to alleviate the problem.
Also, if the league wants to improve viewership and ratings, why wouldn’t every single franchise be involved in the tournament? What is the purpose of having only having eight teams play in separate games that could be more valuable than others?
If the league is going to continue forward with an in season tournament, it will be important for them to include all 3o franchises. The teams need to be incentivized to participate and compete to make the idea worthwhile.
The prize for winning the tournament needs to be quality. Some potential ideas for the winning tournament team could be an automatic playoff berth or an additional first round draft pick in the upcoming draft. This could encourage all franchises to take the tournament seriously.
In order for players to be receptive to the tournament idea, the NBA needs to show consideration for them. This could mean shortening the 82 games season by 10 to 20 games depending on the calendar length of the tournament itself. This might be the best way to improve the quality of games throughout the season. If the season is shortened, there would be no need for games in back-to-back nights, or situations where teams play three games in four nights.
The shortening of the season could be a league sending a message to the players as well. It shows that the league is displaying some consideration for the health of the players, while asking them to play every game that they are healthy. It seems like a fair compromise which can be reached.
A shorter season could be benefit the NBA in a backhanded way. Less games during the regular season could mean less battling with the other sports leagues, such as the NFL and MLB, for viewership. Of course television contracts may prohibit schedule changes though.
It is good that the NBA wants to improve their product. But they need to be careful with how they approach the situation. If it goes poorly, the league will continue to be stuck in the dire spot they currently in.
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