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The NBA introduced the In-Season Tournament (since renamed to the NBA Cup) last season with the intention of drumming up excitement early on in the season. Most teams sleepwalk to begin the year and err on the side of caution, since they know that the season is won in a three-month stretch from April to June, not in November. And for the most part, the tournament did its job. But for Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, he has his worries about how the NBA's regular-season schedule is set up.
While the Warriors head coach praised the league's progressiveness, he believes that reducing the number of games in the regular season is still the way to go if they intend to improve the product's overall quality.
“I am all for experimentation. I'm also for a 75-game season but they're never going to do that. But what I worry about is, the way we play our season now, we basically have a game every other day. While it's good that you are not having the players do many back-to-backs, you hardly get any practice time, and I think the quality of play suffers,” Kerr told reporters, via Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
Steve Kerr credits the NBA for the creativity of adding the In-Season Tournament but ultimately believes that less games and more practice time would enhance the product more than additional games and incentives pic.twitter.com/oLGK0GeLmK
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) October 16, 2024
Kerr even noted that he feels as though they had more time to practice under the league's old schedule setup, when they would play as many as four games in five nights and then have a bit of a lengthy layoff afterwards.
But as for the NBA Cup, it's not as if it's a huge additional burden to the Warriors' and the rest of the league's schedule, for that matter. All NBA Cup games, apart from the Final of the competition, count towards the regular-season record. But for Kerr, it's the additional travel to Las Vegas that could prove worrisome.
“The travel for the final four teams, it's a lot. I like what the league has done. … But I think the downside is the extra game,” Kerr said. “The extra travel seemed to hurt both of the Lakers and Pacers last year.”
Taking a look at the Warriors' NBA Cup draw
Steve Kerr may not have to worry about the additional travel that comes with booking a spot in the final four of the NBA Cup given how difficult the Warriors' group is. The Dubs belong in the group of death, as they are bunched in with four other playoff hopefuls in the Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, New Orleans Pelicans, and Memphis Grizzlies. The Warriors could just as easily go 0-4 as they can 4-0.
Last season, the Warriors gave fans perhaps the most exciting games of the NBA In-Season Tournament's group stage. They went 2-2, with all games being decided by six points or fewer. In fact, it was during the Dubs' In-Season Tournament clash against the Minnesota Timberwolves where Draymond Green put Rudy Gobert in a choke hold.
Green was also at the center of a bang-bang basket interference call during the Warriors' tournament win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. This time around, what will Green do to keep the Warriors' NBA Cup run interesting?
