Feelings on the In Season Tournament?

[jpotter33]

Liked the concept from the get-go, but didn’t know if it’d be successful or if the players would buy in. With the players buying in, I think it’s turned out excellent thus far.

That said, a few things I don’t like:

1) The courts are a bit much and seem to be dangerous. While I do like the look of the C’s court, I hope they do away with that next year. The prominent dark colors make the viewing experience on some courts hard.

2) The point differential thing seems a bit gimmicky and benefits those who play on the final night. Not sure how you fix it, though.

3) I wish this wasn’t so early in the season, where teams are still getting into a groove. Even pushing it back into December and early January would be better in my mind.

[ozgod]

I liked the idea of it to begin with. I'm a big fan of European soccer and so the idea of in-season tournaments is something familiar to me, though they do it a bit differently - they have separate games for the tournaments because there are a few of them (e.g. in the UK they have the FA Cup, the Carabao Cup, not to mention the inter-league transcontinental cups like the Champions League and Europa Cup) and so the teams have a bigger squad to reflect that. They tend to play their second XI for the lesser cups or games against lesser opposition and the first XI for the big games, because their Cups are open to all teams in their league, not just the top league - you have teams from lower divisions (aka the G-League) competing with the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City so you get Cinderella stories like you do with the NCAA tournament.

With the NBA Cup obviously workload would be an issue with additional games or including G-league teams so the whole doubling up of regular season games by rebranding some of them as in season games, and then having to figure out which games would be the knockout ones that would also double up as regular season games was confusing. But I think it's added some excitement to some games that would otherwise just be ho hum.

Even the points differential thing added some spice to the games last night as we tried to work out how many points each team needed to win by to make the QFs. Again, I'm probably more used to points differentials being used to work out which teams progress because of being a soccer fan, but it might not be for everyone. Personally I have no problem with watching blowouts, and little patience for players on the losing team complaining about "disrespect" - its a professional league where people are getting paid millions, not AAU or college, if you don't want to get blown out then play better 

Maybe they can tweak a few things, and I'm sure they will - to me the biggest tweak they could make to make it really meaningful is to make it so that the winner is guaranteed at least a play in berth in the actual playoffs. That would make it really meaningful. But conceptually I think it's going to be a winner.

[Roy H.]

I wish this wasn’t so early in the season, where teams are still getting into a groove. Even pushing it back into December and early January would be better in my mind.

Yeah, this is something I wondered about, too.  I don't have any firm evidence for this, but I've always felt that the regular season kept interest until around the Christmas games.  It's January through April that suck. 

[keevsnick]

I would say I was neutral on it at first, but am now all in.

My main issue was I wasn't sure the players were going to take it seriously, but they very clearly did when it came down to making it into the quarter finals or not. It made the basketball more interesting. And who doesn't love single elimination. 

[Kernewek]

I wish this wasn’t so early in the season, where teams are still getting into a groove. Even pushing it back into December and early January would be better in my mind.

Yeah, this is something I wondered about, too.  I don't have any firm evidence for this, but I've always felt that the regular season kept interest until around the Christmas games.  It's January through April that suck.

This is interesting, because the rule of thumb for most teams and media members - pre-covid at least, perhaps it's changed. - is that Christmas is the 'real' start of the NBA season for most fans, owing to interest in most NFL winding down.

[Celtics2021]

I wish this wasn’t so early in the season, where teams are still getting into a groove. Even pushing it back into December and early January would be better in my mind.

Yeah, this is something I wondered about, too.  I don't have any firm evidence for this, but I've always felt that the regular season kept interest until around the Christmas games.  It's January through April that suck.

I think the timing is early in part to not have it so close to the deadline when there starts to be more player movement, since they’re making the cash prize to the players as part of the incentive.  If you have a bunch of minimum salary guys getting cut the first week of January it might not land as well if someone who was cut misses out on the cash.

I also would imagine ESPN would prefer if the finals were not opposite an NFL playoff game, at least for the first couple of years.   My guess is that if they ever expand to 32 teams, as has been speculated, they’ll go to 8 groups of 4 teams, with everyone playing a home and away game against their group.  That would also reduce the reliance on point differential, while likely extending the tournament a couple of weeks.

[Silas]

Prior to last night, I didn't care for the concept and definitely didn't like the painted floors. After watching the starters and bench play hard all game I have changed my mind.  I enjoyed the game and was thinking about the +23 towards the end.  I love that Kornet said if they win he would use the $ to pay off his mortgage. 

[bdm860]

I wish this wasn’t so early in the season, where teams are still getting into a groove. Even pushing it back into December and early January would be better in my mind.

Yeah, this is something I wondered about, too.  I don't have any firm evidence for this, but I've always felt that the regular season kept interest until around the Christmas games.  It's January through April that suck.

I think the timing is early in part to not have it so close to the deadline when there starts to be more player movement, since they’re making the cash prize to the players as part of the incentive.  If you have a bunch of minimum salary guys getting cut the first week of January it might not land as well if someone who was cut misses out on the cash.

I also would imagine ESPN would prefer if the finals were not opposite an NFL playoff game, at least for the first couple of years.   My guess is that if they ever expand to 32 teams, as has been speculated, they’ll go to 8 groups of 4 teams, with everyone playing a home and away game against their group.  That would also reduce the reliance on point differential, while likely extending the tournament a couple of weeks.

Also I think it helps that so few teams have thrown in the towel yet in November/December (a part of why regular season basketball is good through Christmas) which helps the tournament.  Effort and participation might look a little different if a team has already given up on the season come Jan-Apr.

[keevsnick]

I wish this wasn’t so early in the season, where teams are still getting into a groove. Even pushing it back into December and early January would be better in my mind.

Yeah, this is something I wondered about, too.  I don't have any firm evidence for this, but I've always felt that the regular season kept interest until around the Christmas games.  It's January through April that suck.

I think the timing is early in part to not have it so close to the deadline when there starts to be more player movement, since they’re making the cash prize to the players as part of the incentive.  If you have a bunch of minimum salary guys getting cut the first week of January it might not land as well if someone who was cut misses out on the cash.

I also would imagine ESPN would prefer if the finals were not opposite an NFL playoff game, at least for the first couple of years.   My guess is that if they ever expand to 32 teams, as has been speculated, they’ll go to 8 groups of 4 teams, with everyone playing a home and away game against their group.  That would also reduce the reliance on point differential, while likely extending the tournament a couple of weeks.

Also I think it helps that so few teams have thrown in the towel yet in November/December (a part of why regular season basketball is good through Christmas) which helps the tournament.  Effort and participation might look a little different if a team has already given up on the season come Jan-Apr.

Ya all of this makes perfect sense. You do this in Feb/March and you will get teams that are actively tanking, this is early enough in the seaosn that teams haven't really made that determination just yet.

[86MaxwellSmart]

I am 100% against this...Last night with only a couple minutes to go, Jaylen brown almost got hurt trying to get a loose ball. Imagine if that Bulls player had rolled into Brown's knee, when Jaylen should have been on the bench at that time. Also, Brown did get slightly hurt playing on that crappy slippery floor a couple games ago. These games mean nothing to a team trying to win a Championship.

[Phantom255x]

The whole point differential thing is a bit odd to me, and make no mistake it does make it a little confusing too. I mean on Twitter and even this blog, people were asking every 2 minutes, "what's the scenario if this happens and this doesn't, or if this happens but so does the other thing". It's extremely complex. And yeah, it's easy to say after how last night transpired, but what if someone playing late into the 4th did get seriously hurt? Once it actually happens, NBA fans will suddenly sour on it too. Just wait.

I do think the IST has potential though and admittedly has exceeded my expectations all things considered. I mean, who would ever care about a random November game on a weeknight? But last night a ton of fans tuned in and were very invested

[johnnygreen]

My point differential tie breaker alternative. Every team in each conference plays each other once before the IST. Any tie breaker will be based on head to head match ups outside of the IST, or would then follow any tie breaker options when determining playoff seeding.

The players didn't seem like they wanted to pile on the score last night. Then the team lowered themselves to playing hack-a-Drummond, and coach Mazzulla had to explain himself to the Bulls head coach. The only time the Celtics players were excited was when Hauser had his put back dunk.

[Amonkey]

The whole point differential thing is a bit odd to me, and make no mistake it does make it a little confusing too. I mean on Twitter and even this blog, people were asking every 2 minutes, "what's the scenario if this happens and this doesn't, or if this happens but so does the other thing". It's extremely complex. And yeah, it's easy to say after how last night transpired, but what if someone playing late into the 4th did get seriously hurt? Once it actually happens, NBA fans will suddenly sour on it too. Just wait.

I do think the IST has potential though and admittedly has exceeded my expectations all things considered. I mean, who would ever care about a random November game on a weeknight? But last night a ton of fans tuned in and were very invested

The point differential is not necessarily new in soccer when sometimes they do home-away games where goal differential is the difference maker. It's just weird in basketball when a team has their starters in the 4th quarter when the game is clearly out of reach. I still think the tournament would be more interesting if say, they included a few international teams in the knockout stage and have the finals closer to Christmas.

[JSD]

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.

Sweet. TP

[PAOBoston]

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.

Out of curiosity, how do you see that as different from any other regular season game? The injury could happen in a non IST game. It’s still the same.