Should the play-in tournament be made permanent? (poll)

[gift]

I didn't even realize that it wasn't permanent yet. Overall, I like it.

[CFAN38]

I'm actually surprised how well the play in tournament has helped combat two of the leagues bigger issues. Tanking and Non injury rest days are both being effected by the play in. Mark Cuban was complaining that they have to push to win every game (as they should) because of the fear of the play in. On the tanking side of it the league had a lot more teams at the deadline not inclined to blow it up given the greater chance of making the playoffs.

Moving forward I expect the rest for players to be less of an issue in a non covid condensed season.


One though to help counter the perceived punishment of finishing 7th and needing to win the play in might be to include the 7th and 8th seeds in the lottery.

Another change that I could see benefiting the league would be creating (the already talked about) mid season tournament. I would like to see an east coast and a west coast bubble style 2 week tournament. That alternates with different teams hosting each season. Then end the 2 weeks with the allstar weekend. Breaking up the season with a tournament lessons the teams travel and actually might gives teams more practice time. Placing this post trade deadline will allow players to acclimate with teams better and give fans over all better basketball.   

[Celtics2021]

I'm actually surprised how well the play in tournament has helped combat two of the leagues bigger issues. Tanking and Non injury rest days are both being effected by the play in. Mark Cuban was complaining that they have to push to win every game (as they should) because of the fear of the play in. On the tanking side of it the league had a lot more teams at the deadline not inclined to blow it up given the greater chance of making the playoffs.

Moving forward I expect the rest for players to be less of an issue in a non covid condensed season.


One though to help counter the perceived punishment of finishing 7th and needing to win the play in might be to include the 7th and 8th seeds in the lottery.

Another change that I could see benefiting the league would be creating (the already talked about) mid season tournament. I would like to see an east coast and a west coast bubble style 2 week tournament. That alternates with different teams hosting each season. Then end the 2 weeks with the allstar weekend. Breaking up the season with a tournament lessons the teams travel and actually might gives teams more practice time. Placing this post trade deadline will allow players to acclimate with teams better and give fans over all better basketball.

If either the 7 or 8 seed doesn't make the playoffs (i.e., it loses consecutive play-in games), then they will be in the lottery, and the 9th or 10th team that advances will not be in the lottery.

[PhoSita]

I think if it drives fan interest in the latter games of the season then it's fine.

Personally though I think that the lottery should include all teams that don't garner home court advantage in Round 1.  Then there's no disincentive to winning these play-in games for teams on the cusp.

The league seems to want most of the non-elite teams in the league to be aiming for respectability, so it shouldn't really be a problem if a 40 win 7 seed ends up with a top 5 pick. 

[gouki88]

Divided 50/50 with 28 votes. Nice

[Quetzalcoatl]

I see non injury rest days as a positive thing, but like the impact it has had on tanking.

[Kiorrik]

Oughta do a 40-game season and then everyone makes it to the playoffs. All teams. Huge playoffs. All games matter.

[Muzzy66]

Hell no, I hate the idea.

A team goes out there and plays eighty two games.  They put everything that have in to those games to earn their position...then what?  That potentially all becomes meaningless because they happen to lose one deciding game where they just might happen to play bad, have a guy out with Covid, get a key player ejected?

There's a reason why the playoffs use a 7 game layout - because the sample size is big enough to make sure it's not just a one game fluke. I dont thik its fair if a team plays hard all season to earn a 0.530 record and a #7 seed only to get kicked out because they lost ONE GAME to a 9th seed 0.400 team.  It's not right.

[ManchesterCelticsFan]

A playoff qualifying round for any team that finishes within a few games of each other of the 7th or 8th seed within the standings to find out which 2 teams deserve the last 2 playoff slots would be fun to see. Say on one year, seeds 7 to 12 finish between 39 and 43 wins in an 82 game season. Have them play a round robin mini tournament of each other once each. 2 teams with best record in it make the playoffs and they could play an additional tie breaker game if necessary.  This would give fans more too talk about, media more to talk about, more TV revenue, ticket revenue for NBA/ownership, it would reduce tanking for lotto picks, it would reduce coasting from seeds 4 through 12 or 13 in some years, etc. Teams would only qualify if within a few games of the 8th seed so it would not be completely unfair for a team that earned say 10 wins more than another in regular season but somehow loses the qualifying playoff round.