Feelings on the In Season Tournament?

[Roy H.]

My thoughts:  I don't care about an in-season trophy, and ultimately, the winner of the tournament is actually punished by having to play an extra game.  Some of those court gimmicks were very hard on the eyes, and they posed an injury risk due to being overly slippery.

BUT...  The players have seemingly bought in, and that's leading to more motivated basketball, which improves the quality of the viewing experience.  And, when the players care, it makes the fans care, too. 

Overall, I'd call it a success, and something that overall I have enjoyed to this point.  I'm surprised by that.

[PAOBoston]

Last night was big night for NBA. A lot of attention and score watching for a Tuesday night. Teams played hard to advance and more importantly played their stats deep into games. At the end of it, as a paying fan, that is what you want when you go to games.

I think it will get better over time. This is the first one and sort of a test. Players clearly spoke about the prize money and I expect that to increase over the years. It’s a good concept and it generates attention during the early to mid part of the season which sometimes just drags. Also, is the NBA expands, it might lead to better logistics/groups as well for the first round.

[Redz]

I’ve been hopeful that it would work from the start, but it really didn’t seem to matter much until it did, and then it was a pretty cool thing to see.  I think the knockout rounds will definitely be competitive based on what we saw last night (though I’m not certain how the rest of the games that mattered played out last night - it did appear just from watching the scores that the Knicks were trying to win by as much as possible).

I was going to start a separate thread about the following question, but I’ll ask it here:  Just how difficult was what the Celtics accomplished last night?  Going into a game knowing you need to win by 23, then going out and doing it - when the other wasn’t exactly laying down and rolling over for you either. 

I thought Joe explained it pretty well - it wasn’t in their mindset until it was. 

It was just a completely unique thing.  And not at all how they’re used to playing. 

The only thing that puzzled me was taking the starters out with a couple of minutes to go.  If you’ve taken it that far then why stop?  I guess they figured catching the Knicks  for the WC spot was out of the picture and the 23 point margin was safe, but that got a little iffy. 

Anyhow, I enjoyed the scoreboard watching and Scal being on top of it and into helped build the drama, so good on him for that.

[trickybilly]

Point differential system for deciding winner/wildcard is stupid.

Like the courts, unis etc, incentive etc..

[Rikibellevie]

Yes both of you are saying right things. I am still a little worried than some players, because of the intensity, may hurt themselves in the final tournament. And I would love a carrot for the regular season,  like being able to give an upper exception to sign  FA in the buyout market, by exemple.

[Neurotic Guy]

My thoughts:  I don't care about an in-season trophy, and ultimately, the winner of the tournament is actually punished by having to play an extra game.  Some of those court gimmicks were very hard on the eyes, and they posed an injury risk due to being overly slippery.

BUT...  The players have seemingly bought in, and that's leading to more motivated basketball, which improves the quality of the viewing experience.  And, when the players care, it makes the fans care, too. 

Overall, I'd call it a success, and something that overall I have enjoyed to this point.  I'm surprised by that.

I agree with your first paragraph 100%.   While it's true that the IST gave some intensity to what would have been a mundane end of November game v. the Bulls, the cost of being in the tournament is playing a set of extra-intense games with the possibility of an 83rd game in the IST championship.  I understand the general bump in fan interest, but for me -- sad as it may be -- I watch nearly every game anyway and am interested in every game - regardless of IST. In other words, for me, there is no payoff in terms of my interest and investment.  Winning the IST seems meaningless to me - just an injury risk.   I also truly don't care that the players will make more money -- even the end of bench young guys already make a better salary than I've ever dreamed of making.  Some of the talk by Scal and Eddie last night felt like -- yeah, let's do this for the poor young guys (even Queta and Davison earn $600K this year; Walsh $1.1M). 

I can't say whether I'll watch if the C's make it to the final game.  Probably will, but for the most part I'll be holding my breath that no one is injured. 

[Donoghus]

Last night was awesome. 

Scoreboard watching a Raptors/Nets game in November?  Who would've ever thought that. 

Obviously, if someone tears their ACL during the IST Finals and goes out for the season, then I'm singing a different tune, though.

[Who]

Never liked it. Like it even less now.

Those courts an eyesore. They make the games hard to watch.

The announcers and analysts yammering on about this useless bloody tournament is annoying.

[Kernewek]

My thoughts:  I don't care about an in-season trophy, and ultimately, the winner of the tournament is actually punished by having to play an extra game.  Some of those court gimmicks were very hard on the eyes, and they posed an injury risk due to being overly slippery.

BUT...  The players have seemingly bought in, and that's leading to more motivated basketball, which improves the quality of the viewing experience.  And, when the players care, it makes the fans care, too. 

Overall, I'd call it a success, and something that overall I have enjoyed to this point.  I'm surprised by that.

I agree with your first paragraph 100%.   While it's true that the IST gave some intensity to what would have been a mundane end of November game v. the Bulls, the cost of being in the tournament is playing a set of extra-intense games with the possibility of an 83rd game in the IST championship.  I understand the general bump in fan interest, but for me -- sad as it may be -- I watch nearly every game anyway and am interested in every game - regardless of IST. In other words, for me, there is no payoff in terms of my interest and investment.  Winning the IST seems meaningless to me - just an injury risk.   I also truly don't care that the players will make more money -- even the end of bench young guys already make a better salary than I've ever dreamed of making.  Some of the talk by Scal and Eddie last night felt like -- yeah, let's do this for the poor young guys (even Queta and Davison earn $600K this year; Walsh $1.1M). 

I can't say whether I'll watch if the C's make it to the final game.  Probably will, but for the most part I'll be holding my breath that no one is injured.

In a world where people complain that the stars are playing more than 30 minutes per game, an extra game isn't anything significant, surely.

[Celtics2021]

I was willing to give it a chance, while conceding it seemed to be a TV money grab, but I like it.  And the reason it is a successful money grab is because there’s been buy-in by the players for the most part, which means we’re seeing some better play than we might otherwise expect in November.

I wouldn’t be surprised if baseball tries to copy it.

[A Future of Stevens]

I like the effort it brings out in teams. Especially during last night's games. I just feel like there has to be some incentive for fans to care. Maybe the 25th pick in the draft, or a 2 year big TPE. Something that has real stakes for a fan to care about. Is it cool Hauser could possibly get a big bonus this year? Yeah, good for him. The monetary motivations of players only impacts fans in how our teams are constructed.

[JSD]

I honestly haven’t been paying much attention, are the Celtics still in the tournament?

[Celtics2021]

I honestly haven’t been paying much attention, are the Celtics still in the tournament?

Yes, they’ve advanced to the quarterfinals and play Indy next week.

[bdm860]

I don't care about an in-season trophy, and ultimately, the winner of the tournament is actually punished by having to play an extra game.

One thing that's changed for me is that I now look at it more like NCAA basketball.

I don't care that my team won the Maui Invitational or pre-season NIT/NIT Season Tip-Off a few years back, or even last year.  I doubt when Duke and North Carolina fans are arguing, and a North Carolina fans say "we have more national championships" Duke fans don't counter with "well we have more Maui Invitational championships!" Nobody cares about the trophy or the history.

But what I do care about is my team winning every game that's in front of them now.  It's exciting to win.  It's gives positive vibes that ya we're a good team, we on track to win the Finals in June, other teams tried to take us down but we outplayed them!  It's no guarantee of playoff success come June, but it's a positive sign in November/December when there's not much else to go by.

Treating the in-season tournament like it's an important NBA accomplishment that should be held in the same high regard as the Finals.  Ya I don't think that will ever take.

But treating it like the Maui Invitational?  Now it makes sense.  Even though it's not important in the broad scheme of things, if you're in it, you want to win it.

[johnnygreen]

The tournament is growing on me, and I like it.

I like the fact that the courts are changed so the fans are aware of the IST, however, going forward the colors should not be as bold. Maybe simply change the court so it has the IST logo, just like "The Finals".

The NBA needs to get rid of the point differential idea. The players don't want to run up the scores and do any fans enjoy watching blowouts. And the only reason last night was interesting for Celtics fans was because the Celtics lost to Orlando, which made the game against Chicago so relevant.

I know most fans don't care, but I like the idea of the bench guys making the same $500k as the starters, if the team wins the IST. The imbalance in salary between max players and everyone else is out of control.