As the Detroit Pistons and the rest of the league complete the 2022 Summer League, Adam Silver and the NBA are revealing some of their future plans.
Silver has long been a promotor of a some type of “in-season tournament” to increase engagement and create more meaningful games in the regular season.
The league is trying to find creative ways to overcome the tanking and “load management” of star players that has somewhat watered down the regular season over recent years.
The play-in tournament has helped, as more teams see a realistic path to the playoffs and the value of having a couple of extra high-profile games for their young players and for arena revenue.
The play-in tournament has been a success. It didn’t stop tanking of course but it gave teams in the gray area of the 8-10 seeds something to play for and made the regular season more exciting for those fan bases.
So could an in-season tournament do the same?
Detroit Pistons: How would an NBA in-season tournament work?
Though the details have yet to be fully revealed, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski gave us an idea of what it might look like:
ESPN Sources: There’s renewed traction on a future In-Season Tournament in the NBA. The league and union are discussing a structure that includes December pool play, pre-Christmas quarters/semis/finals and $1M per player payout on winning team. More next on ESPN’s NBA Countdown.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 25, 2021
The tournament would start around the 25-30 game mark of the season and would obviously give the NBA a lot more attention leading up the Christmas Day games, which always do huge numbers.
It’s a time normally owned by the NFL, so the NBA is trying to get a larger piece of December.
I also found the $1 million payout per player to be interesting, though I am not sure it will be enough motivation for some players, or enough to get audiences interested.
Overall, I am all-in on an in-season tournament in the NBA, but there are definitely pros and cons, especially for teams like the Detroit Pistons.