With basketball season underway, the NBA has introduced something new. That being the in-season tournament. The in-season tournament according to league commissioner Adam Silver has been “[A] concept that has been rumbling around the league office for around 15 years”
The tournament started with group play, where each team was put into a 5 team pod based on what conference they were in and what their record the previous season was. They then each played the other teams in their pod once, and the ones with the best record got sent into the knockout round.
In the knockout round, the aforementioned teams and the best two non-winning teams advanced into a bracket-style where any loss knocks a team out of the tournament. The teams would play in the quarter-finals, then the winning teams would advance to the semi-finals. Finally, the winning teams would play in the championship.
But does the in-season tournament matter you may ask? Well, it does. Except for the championship game, the rest of the games count for the regular season. The tournament also matters because the players on the winning team each win a 500,000 bonus.
The reason the NBA thought up the in-season tournament is that basketball season is at its most irrelevant point from November to December. The tournament would hopefully get people to watch otherwise meaningless December basketball games and generate the NBA lots of extra revenue.
Another thing the NBA did to attract attention was give teams crazy courts in the tournament. All of the courts are painted in vibrant colors that you would never think you would see on a basketball court.
In conclusion, the NBA in-season tournament is just a way to get hype about regular season games during the basketball season. The tournament seems to be a success as Warrior’s coach Steve Kerr sums it up by saying, “Our players are excited, and I don’t need to give them any special motivation.”
