NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is hoping the success of this year's play-in tournament will help reignite conversations about the implementation of a midseason tournament at some point in the future, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
The NBA has been looking for ways to spice up the regular season in order to make it more meaningful while also discouraging tanking. There have also been other competitive changes made in recent years when it comes to the All-Star Game and in-game coach's challenges.
The midseason tournament idea was broached before the pandemic, but it didn't get to a Board of Governor's vote. Silver is now hoping the hype surrounding the play-in tournament will lead to a midseason tournament. The Los Angeles Lakers' victory over the Golden State Warriors drew big ratings.
While it's too late for this tournament to be a part of the 2021-22 season, there's a chance it could happen in 2022-23 if it passes a vote. The NBA would need an agreement with the NBPA and a two-thirds majority among the 30 teams to implement the midseason tournament.
Woj writes on some of the ideas that have been tossed around:
Original midseason tournament proposals centered around a European soccer model event that would tie into the NBA's traditional schedule. The league had discussed an eight-team single-elimination tournament that would be incentivized with $1 million per player payouts to the winning team, sources said. The NBA had discussed a scenario of pool play embedded into the regular-season schedule to determine those teams advancing into the single-elimination tournament.
Some of the pushback expected involves getting the buy-in of star players. There's also expected to be concern from teams about the potential of losing revenue if the regular season is shortened to accommodate the tournament.
We'll see how far these talks go.
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