I don't much care for the in season tournament. It doesn't accomplish the goal of making regular season games matter. Top teams can still afford to load manage players & waltz into the playoffs as mid tier seeds or even lower. Part of that is the fact that every series is 7 games and those games matter less as a result. A team can afford to drop a game or two and still advance. The league has always increased the number of games and length of playoff series .... and that's led us to where we are today. When those opening round series were only 3 or 5 games teams didn't have the luxury of losing a game or two. I know most of you have no recollection of that era but the games were intense, teams were fighting for playoff seeding during the season and dudes didn't load manage because every game of the 82 mattered. It might be time to go back to that instead of this silly in season tournament that doesn't solve the issue at all, dudes will take games off before or after the tournament.
In-season tournament is stupid and pointless. Just another way of de-valuing the regular season, which is already too low in value. The standings should matter more, not less. The bulk of the time we spend watching our home teams play basketball is watching regular season games and it should mean something beyond the individual salaries of the players involved. I also expect us to perform poorly in this tournament, by the way. The team won't have even fully adjusted to Udoka's system yet. Lots of guys who need to get to know each other, what spots they like the ball, etc. So even if we somehow sneak into the play-in, and somehow luck into making the playoffs as a low seed (which I consider unlikely but possible), that will probably have to come off a late-season run after we start putting it all together. The first half of the season is highly likely to be pretty rough, and that includes this sham of a tournament.
It does not de-value in that sense because the in season games count as regular season games. Regular season games plus prize money, prestige, all the social media fanfare.... It is made a circus for sure. As for Udoka, I think he is more of a tournament coach than a 80 games regular season coach.
No, it doesn't devalue the regular season but it does absolutely nothing to solve the problem of teams sitting start players and resting them when those guys are who the fans pay to see. That in season tournament means little to a guy making $30M+, it really matters to the players on the mid to lower end of the pay scale. You want to make the regular season matter, give the top seed in each conference a bye. The best teams / players need a carrot at the end of the stick.
I can't find a reason to care about it but willing to give a chance. I find it really silly that it's just regular season games being called something else too. That's not at all how it works in football (soccer). At least in the lesser cups in football, all teams rest their best players so that younger or other players get a chance to show what they're made of.
If the league wanted to build the fan base then they would go to throwback rules with these throwback jerseys. Give me the rulebook from the 80's or 90's and I promise I'll be a superfan again.
Well, guys, have a heart - at least the poor players get to make some extra money. Can't wait to see the hype the NBA puts around this. Waiting for the "In-season Tournament" championship hats, t-shirts, and keychains... Meanwhile fans are over here paying crazy ticket and concession prices in the hopes their favorite star may be playing on any given night instead of being load managed.
If they want to make not-so-meaningful games more meaningful, they should do the tournament towards the end of the regular season with teams that have no chance of making the playoffs.
Explain why its any more fun than a normal regular season game or how it keeps teams from load managing stars before or after the tournament.
so on the tournament game days or whatever, do we think the guys will play harder for those games or same ol ish for the players lol
