The NBA In-Season Tournament Is Amazing
Entering this current NBA season, one of the largest storylines was the introduction of the In-Season Tournament. Much of the noise surrounding the tournament was either negative or, at best, neutral, but so far it has blown expectations out of the water.
While the idea of doing something like this had been put out there for years by Commissioner Adam Silver, many were very questioning about how such a thing would be executed. With the incentive of $500,000 for each player on the winning team, some questioned if this would be enough to truly elevate the intensity or if most players would simply treat these games as average, low-stakes regular-season games. Many were also confused about the rules, with some players not having a strong grasp of how all these different tiebreakers would come into play for their positioning in the tournament.
I may have been a bit more optimistic than the average NBA fan, but I still held many of the same concerns as the larger public. I felt it would be near impossible to manufacture a playoff atmosphere in December, but the quarterfinal games held over the past two nights have proved that entirely wrong. Even in the placement games, having them every week on the same nights with the jerseys and the courts brought a certain aura to the games that did make them feel special. Players and teams had moments where they were confused about the rules, but seeing organizations willing to leave out their starters even in blowouts to chase that point differential was just another aspect that helped to separate it from typical regular-season action. By the end of the placement games, we were left with a perfect mix of smaller and larger markets, and above all, it seemed that some great basketball was ready to be played.
Quarterfinal action couldn’t have gotten off to a better start, as two of the NBA’s most exciting teams faced off with the Pacers and Celtics. While the Celtics had clearly shown that they took the tournament seriously by blowing out the Bulls to ensure their spot, it was even more abundantly clear how much this mattered to the Pacers. With Indiana being a small market, it is very rare they will find themselves on national TV, so other than the playoffs, this is likely the biggest stage they will get all year. Putting into perspective how big of a spotlight this game was compared to the average Pacers game, this was only the second time Tyrese Haliburton has played on national TV, meaning this may be the first time some casual fans have watched him outside of seeing highlights. So, him putting on the incredible performance he did, capped off by a ridiculous 4-point play, likely gained him a ton of new fans. There was also an amazing storyline in this game, as Aaron Nesmith was going against his former team who gave up on him, so his massive fourth quarter and the huge pop he got from the crowd on his game-ceiling slam had to feel great. This creates even further storylines if these two match up in the playoffs, as Indiana has a high-profile win over Boston under their belt, and they were not afraid to throw in some friendly disrespect during the game.
Suns versus Lakers also was a thrilling game that replicated playoff basketball very closely. While the controversy surrounding the refs at the end of the game certainly left Suns fans upset, and you have to feel for the lower-earning guys on the roster who missed out on potentially a large portion of their salary, that heat around the game shows that this is not just the typical Tuesday night game. Just like the Celtics and Pacers games now, a potential series between Phoenix and LA has some extra storylines that just make that matchup even more exciting if it happened to go down.
The other two games weren’t as exciting, but we still saw some crazy performances from the likes of Julius Randle, Domantas Sabonis, and others. Though Kings versus Pels and Bucks versus Knicks weren’t even the most exciting games, it’s two more potential playoff series that now have some extra excitement that they wouldn’t have without this happening.
Some of the courts may be disgustingly ugly, some of the rules could use some streamlining to allow fans to understand them more easily, but as a whole, having the extra stakes with the reward that comes at the end has made this experiment a huge success. Seeing the fan excitement of Indiana and how excited the players are, knowing for seven players on the team they have a chance to make 1/6 of their salary in just one game, is yet another tool to make NBA basketball more exciting. We as fans have to give credit to Adam Silver because he continues to push boundaries and take risks to make a better product, something many other commissioners would be afraid to do.
