This season, the NBA, added an in-season tournament to crown a champion within the first couple months of the season.
I do not like this idea at all because when they do crown a champion, the team will not get anything besides a trophy and some pocket money.
Tip off was on Nov 3 and the in season tournament champion will be crowned on Dec 9. Every team has a good shot at winning this tournament, but does it really matter if you win?
The winning team earns a trophy and each player will get a bonus of a couple hundred grand. But with these players making millions of dollars annually, this money won’t make a difference.
It will be interesting to see how the tournament goes for its first year. The league should award the winning team a guaranteed playoff spot in the postseason. There will be two stages in the mid season tournament, the group stage and knockout stage.
There are three groups in the Western and Easter conferences, and the top team from each group will advance to the knockout stage. The second best second team from each conference will advance as wild cards.
In total there will be four teams from each conference and eight total competing in the knockout bracket. All of the games in the knockout stage will be single elimination.
In order to make this tournament more fun and exciting, the NBA needs add a really good incentive so the teams can really work for something coming into it.
After the inaugural tournament finishes, the NBA needs to change this tournament as soon as possible. This could be a good underdog tournament, but when we go back and see what the reward is for winning it, we realize it’s just a meaningless trophy with no history to it. The NBA needs to change that in order to have a successful tournament moving forward.
This tournament is a definition of a money grab from the people who watch it and attend games. Mid-season tournaments have no reason to be added except for the NBA begging for money and trying to have playoffs right in the beginning of the season when injuries are often likely.
If a star player from a team tears his ACL or suffers another crazy injury, the team will be very unhappy how this tournament affected their chance of making it to the actual playoffs.
Ultimately we can only hope that the tournament goes well, and if it succeeds the league will continue to have it every year. But it must be noted that improvements are needed.