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

[Tr1boy]

Covid or no Covid ... when back to full season.  Should the NBA make the play-in tournament permanent?

The pros outweigh the cons imo. 

7th/8th teams do have to go through a longer journey to make the playoffs.  But on the flipside teams from 9th-12th play harder during the season.  While also basement dwellers like the 13th-14th teams play harder also in theory due to "hope" of making 10th place

yes or no for keeping the play in tourney beyond this season?

[Ogaju]

Yes..it discourages tanking.

[Tr1boy]

Yes..it discourages tanking.

Agreed

This has been a tough season overall

Better for the league

[PAOBoston]

Heck yes. There aren’t many avenues that discourage blatant tanking since relegation isn’t an option. Pro making those spots a little more competitive. Sort of hope there is some sort of lottery seeding that eventually gets tied to it that places some importance on getting in that play in area in the standings.

[SHAQATTACK]

Yes..it discourages tanking.

+1. 

[kraidstar]

The bigger problem is that regular season is pointless for contending teams. Look at the Celtics, who are a fringe/dark horse contender. Stevens said publicly they don't care about record or seeding, and just want to be healthy. Half our key guys miss a given game. Which makes sense.

There is no incentive to do otherwise. So when ESPN or whoever advertises hypes these regular season matchups it is a joke. Lakers vs Nets? who cares? Half the starters won't be playing, and even if they were, the only meaning for the victor is that they MIGHT get an extra home playoff game or two somewhere down the line. the difference in difficulty between a #1 seed and a #5 seed is not great.

It's a real problem and removes any tension from the regular season. And the owner are too greedy to do anything about it by implementing a first-round bye or whatever.

[Birdman]

I don’t like it..

[Jiri Welsch]

[Edit: Somehow I double posted. Sorry guys]

[Jiri Welsch]

No the play-in tournament is a bit of a force IMO.

It's one thing if the sport is like baseball or hockey, where a team that is a low seed or second Wild Card can realistically make a run and has a shot at the title. The NBA is not like that, and barring a historical moment like the 1999 Knicks, it's just a waste of time.

[Moranis]

No the play-in tournament is a bit of a force IMO.

It's one thing if the sport is like baseball or hockey, where a team that is a low seed or second Wild Card can realistically make a run and has a shot at the title. The NBA is not like that, and barring a historical moment like the 1999 Knicks, it's just a waste of time.

And the Knicks were 27-23 in a strike shortened season.

Very rarely do I think, man it sucks that 9th team didn't make the playoffs with such a good record and I don't think I've ever thought that with the 10th seed. 

The last full season the 9th and 10th teams in each conference were the 39-43 Hornets, 39-43 Heat, 39-43 Kings, and 37-45 Lakers.  The season before you would have had the 39-43 Pistons and the 36-46 Hornets in the East, though the two western teams were above .500 in the 46-36 Nuggets and 42-40 Clippers.  17 Season you would have had the 41-41 Heat, 37-45 Pistons, 40-42 Nuggets, and 34-48 Pelicans. 

I just don't think by and large those teams deserve a shot at the playoffs.  Now sure you get the weird season like 17-18 when the West had two teams above .500, but that is the rare season, not the norm.  Normally you would have at least 1 mid-30 win team making the playoffs and that just isn't deserved.

[slamtheking]

I'm torn on this.  I think for this season it works due to the highly unusual circumstances.  not sure if it's something that would still work for a regular season unless there's a real financial incentive for bad teams to fight for a possible single-elimination game and miss out on a better draft pick.  I suspect the lure of that draft pick would be greater than a 1-game payout.

[nickagneta]

I hate it. I think it wildly unfair to the teams at 7 and 8 that fought hard to get those spots only to see themselves possibly losing those slots to teams that might finish 3-6 games or more behind them because they had one bad game in the play-in. The NBA playoffs have always been about showing who was the better team over a series because "on any given day" anyone can beat anyone in a one game play-in.

That said, it is a deterrent from tanking, the NBA gets to drive more revenue and keep more fanbases engaged and their media partners get to sell more prime advertising time to make more money.

Therefore, I think it will remain unless......the Lakers somehow fall into the play-in this year and get knocked out right away. That could sour opinions in both NBA circles and at TNT and Disney and cause it to be a short lived idea.

[Celtics2021]

I like the play-in tournament, because it creates more inflection points in the standings.

Do you want to be 7th or 6th?  In most years, teams would be indifferent.  Now, they care.

2nd or 3rd?  Sure, in the past you’d prefer 2nd over 3rd to get home court in the second round, but now you’d get home-court AND get to play a team coming off the play-in tournament (in other words, one that isn’t rested).

10th or 11th?  The Bulls made a major deadline deal to fight for 10th.  It’s not working for them, but it was fun to see.  And ask the Wizards, who’ve won 9 in a row now, if they don’t care.

And 8th or 9th still matters, because 8th has to win 1 out of 2 games to advance, whereas 9th needs to win 2 out of 2, so that inflection points remains, even if it’s reduced.

Do I think it’s the perfect solution?  No.  But the NBA’s long season had become stale, and I think this is a worthwhile attempt to liven it up.  Certainly it made good sense to test it out in a shortened season which at the outset the league didn’t know if some teams would play 10-15 games fewer than other teams.

[Atzar]

I would prefer that they keep the standard format.  But if you feel like you absolutely HAVE to include the 9- and 10-seeds for some reason, at least set up the play-ins as short three-game series or something.  Not too crazy about a long season being decided by one game, personally.  Basketball is much too variable. 

[slamtheking]

I would prefer that they keep the standard format.  But if you feel like you absolutely HAVE to include the 9- and 10-seeds for some reason, at least set up the play-ins as short three-game series or something.  Not too crazy about a long season being decided by one game, personally.  Basketball is much too variable.

on the flip side, the variable factor could serve as a motivation for players that tend to coast through too many games (like we've seen all too often this season with the C's).