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.
Detroit Pistons: Pros of an NBA in-season tournament
To me the biggest pro is more basketball!
Who doesn’t want that? As someone who enjoys watching basketball and writes about it as a job, I see no downside to having an in-season tournament, especially for a young team.
I live in Ireland and am recently getting back into English and European football again and I’d be lying if I told you I completely understand all of it, but it seems like there are always meaningful games on.
Whether its the FA Cup or Champions League, there always seems (at least to this uneducated Yank who only kind of likes soccer and prefers Irish GAA) to be some big game on for fans to watch and it would be great if the NBA could bring some of the same thing to the regular season.
These tournaments are fun, and give some of the lesser known teams a chance to win something even if they are buried in their own league.
As for teams like the current Detroit Pistons, it would give the young guys a chance to play in meaningful games and the chance to win something even if their team isn’t going to make the playoffs.
Who wouldn’t want to see Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons get hot and win an in-season tournament?
Even though a million dollars is chump change to some of these guys, it’s still offers meaningful motivation to win, raise money for charities etc… so I do think the younger teams in the NBA would take it seriously.
But would everyone take it seriously? This is where we start getting into the potential cons.
Detroit Pistons: Cons of an NBA in-season tournament
The biggest question for me around an in-season tournament is whether there would be adequate motivation for players to take it seriously.
Tournaments like the FA Cup and Champions League in football have built-in motivation, as lower league teams compete in the FA Cup and have a chance to go on a miracle run and the Champions League features top teams from around Europe.
Would an NBA tournament have such motivation? I’m not sure. The NBA will have to be careful how they schedule this or some players might take time off instead of competing. I could definitely see some teams holding out their top guys, as winning an NBA title is still the goal.
Teams are being more and more cautious about injuries, as we’ve seen in the Summer League, as few teams played their top guys more than one or two games. We’ve seen a lot of stars taking planned days off in the regular season, something that didn’t really happen in previous eras.
Would teams and players think the risk was worth it? Some certainly would, but I question if cash is enough motivation.
I also question whether casual fans will really care, though if the play-in tournament is any indication, there will be interest.
I hope the NBA figures it out, as I want more meaningful Detroit Pistons basketball and think an in-season tournament could be amazing if they do it right and find a way to make it matter.