Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 4:39 pm Post subject: NBA discussing a reduced schedule, expanded playoffs, reseeding and an in-season tournament
Is there no thread on this yet?
Summarizing:
- Removal of up to 4 regular season games
- 7v8 for 7. Loser 7v8 vs. Winner 9v10 for 8
- Conferenceless Conference Finals
- Single elimination 8 team tournament with qualifiers built into the regular schedule; players and coaches incentivized by compensation
Proposals exist that would compensate players and coaches for advancing in and winning the tournament, league sources said. Even with possible passage, the NBA has no illusions that it will get the entire league to make an immediate enthusiastic commitment to the importance of competing for an in-season tournament championship, but it does believe that would come with time and tradition.
A way to give smaller market teams and teams like the Clippers a chance to say they won something? This idea seems pretty strange to me.
Joined: 24 Jun 2005 Posts: 2500 Location: Inland Empire
Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 10:29 pm Post subject:
Steve007 wrote:
Quote:
Proposals exist that would compensate players and coaches for advancing in and winning the tournament, league sources said. Even with possible passage, the NBA has no illusions that it will get the entire league to make an immediate enthusiastic commitment to the importance of competing for an in-season tournament championship, but it does believe that would come with time and tradition.
A way to give smaller market teams and teams like the Clippers a chance to say they won something? This idea seems pretty strange to me.
The in-season tournament is a joke. Hope that gets scratched from the list.
F-the players buying into that, how about us the fans buying into that?
What's the payoff for winning this tournament? Money? Good for them, but what about us the fan? Does a team suddenly get like a bye in the playoffs or a free win? If it doesn't apply to the regular season or playoffs then what is the incentive?
The rest seem doable.
Bye. _________________ "This trophy removes the most odious sentence in the English Language. It can never be said again that 'the Lakers have never beaten the Celtics.'" -Dr. Jerry Buss (1985) R.I.P., 33 x M.V.O.
Joined: 25 Apr 2015 Posts: 31941 Location: Anaheim, CA
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 1:31 am Post subject:
The in-season tournament idea is a disaster. I'm also not sure what I think about re-seeding the conference finals. That's a lot of travel, potentially, before the Finals. Not sure if that would really be doing the teams a favor.
The entire system is set up to emphasize the playoffs. That’s one reason why a tournament much earlier seems weird. College basketball has some tournaments before the big one, including some tournaments in November, but winning those earlier tournaments can help a team make the tournament in March, and get a higher seed too. Doesn’t seem like an NBA tournament during the season will help a team much in April when the playoffs start.
Not sure how I feel about the other ideas, but some of those teams seeded 9 and 10 can have pretty bad records. Last year the 10th seed in the West was the Lakers with a 37-45 record. But I guess that record could have been better if the team was fighting for a playoff spot.
Right now the records for the 9th and 10th teams are:
West: Kings at 7-9 and Thunder at 6-10
East: Wizards at 5-9 and Pistons at 6-11
Joined: 24 Dec 2007 Posts: 35862 Location: Santa Clarita, CA (Hell) ->>>>>Ithaca, NY -≥≥≥≥≥Berkeley, CA
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 5:36 am Post subject:
The regular season (82) games is way too long and puts way too much physical stress on players given its relative lack of importance (simply deciding seeding). 16 out of 30 teams make the playoffs-- I wish it were harder like the MLB so that regular season games meant more. _________________ Damian Lillard shatters Dwight Coward's championship dreams:
Proposals exist that would compensate players and coaches for advancing in and winning the tournament, league sources said. Even with possible passage, the NBA has no illusions that it will get the entire league to make an immediate enthusiastic commitment to the importance of competing for an in-season tournament championship, but it does believe that would come with time and tradition.
A way to give smaller market teams and teams like the Clippers a chance to say they won something? This idea seems pretty strange to me.
The idea is to replicate the FA Cup/Champions League dynamic from European football. If done right, it could be enormously successful. Imagine having, say, the Lakers and the Celtics playing the NBA Cup title game in February. A lot of people who whine about this sort of tournament for one reason or another, but after about five years, it would be an engrained part of the NBA season.
But this assumes that the league could find a format that works within the context of the existing season, and it is dependent on cutting the length of the regular season to 78 games. I'm not convinced that the logistical problems have been resolved in a satisfactory manner.
In season tournament would be a waste of time. Don't forget that the entire purpose of the NBA season is to prepare you for the playoffs, the only tournament that matters for NBA players.
The entire system is set up to emphasize the playoffs. That’s one reason why a tournament much earlier seems weird. College basketball has some tournaments before the big one, including some tournaments in November, but winning those earlier tournaments can help a team make the tournament in March, and get a higher seed too. Doesn’t seem like an NBA tournament during the season will help a team much in April when the playoffs start.
Not sure how I feel about the other ideas, but some of those teams seeded 9 and 10 can have pretty bad records. Last year the 10th seed in the West was the Lakers with a 37-45 record. But I guess that record could have been better if the team was fighting for a playoff spot.
Right now the records for the 9th and 10th teams are:
West: Kings at 7-9 and Thunder at 6-10
East: Wizards at 5-9 and Pistons at 6-11
Tournaments are more ingrained into the college system. You have those early season tournaments, the conference championship tournaments and finally the NCAA tournament. I would say that tournaments are more valuable for college players because it allows the national media to watch prospects that they would probably ignore if it was just any other game on the schedule.
Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Posts: 18223 Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 11:14 am Post subject:
If reducing the schedule by 4 games is meant to address load management, I'm pretty sure Kawhi has already missed more games than that already and we're not even 25% into the season yet.
I'd be open to changing the playoff requirements to be the top 8 teams but leave the (1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5) seeding as is. If a team wins their conference, they should be awarded the easiest matchups. _________________ "Suck it up. Don't be a baby. Do your job." - Kobe Bryant
Why are they over thinking it? Lop 10 games off the schedule and make it the top 16 teams, regardless of conference... Or make it like the baseball or football and divide the teams by conference... Not by location.
It seems apparent no one wants to live in the midwest and a good portion don't want to live in the east, so scrap the location based conferences.
Joined: 14 Apr 2001 Posts: 144474 Location: The Gold Coast
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 9:07 am Post subject:
Why try to fix something that isn’t broken? Besides trying to bump revenue because the league sees the next TV contract decreasing. _________________ RIP mom. 11-21-1933 to 6-14-2023.
[quote="venturalakersfan"]Why try to fix something that isn’t broken? Besides trying to bump revenue because the league sees the next TV contract decreasing.[/quote
Well, if TV revenue is at risk, then maybe something is broken - or at least, can use a little bit of a refresh.
I think it's good that all ideas are on the table. Seems like they're looking at European soccer as much as anything for ideas. I don't know the numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if TV revenue is increasing for those leagues (in large part because of improved access to U.S. markets).
In season tournament would be a waste of time. Don't forget that the entire purpose of the NBA season is to prepare you for the playoffs, the only tournament that matters for NBA players.
Not if there's a large monetary reward for players and teams. Imagine the players receiving significant compensation for winning the tournament, and the team gets to have an extra exception to sign players or something like that.
As others have said, there's precedent in basketball and other professional sports in Europe. It might not be a huge deal initially, but it might catch on. _________________ ¡Hala Madrid!
Joined: 14 Apr 2001 Posts: 144474 Location: The Gold Coast
Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2019 8:27 am Post subject:
Wilt wrote:
lakersken80 wrote:
In season tournament would be a waste of time. Don't forget that the entire purpose of the NBA season is to prepare you for the playoffs, the only tournament that matters for NBA players.
Not if there's a large monetary reward for players and teams. Imagine the players receiving significant compensation for winning the tournament, and the team gets to have an extra exception to sign players or something like that.
As others have said, there's precedent in basketball and other professional sports in Europe. It might not be a huge deal initially, but it might catch on.
Patterning the league after International basketball seems like a step backward. Trying to milk every dollar they can would more than likely backfire on them. _________________ RIP mom. 11-21-1933 to 6-14-2023.
Patterning the league after International basketball seems like a step backward. Trying to milk every dollar they can would more than likely backfire on them.
This is what the NBA has been doing for, oh, about the last 40 years. I can remember people claiming that all of these televised games would backfire on the NBA, and that so many playoff games would backfire on the NBA, yada yada yada.
Joined: 14 Apr 2001 Posts: 144474 Location: The Gold Coast
Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 6:11 pm Post subject:
They are talking about giving the winner of the tournament an extra draft pick. I doubt that the players are going to go all out for another pick that would take another veteran job. _________________ RIP mom. 11-21-1933 to 6-14-2023.
All these ideas are putrid and would worsen the league and make historical stats obsolete.
I hate the ideas but of course I also hate the way the NBA goes about a lot of things so that is not really a surprise.
Just leave it the way it is, don't try and cowtow to draw in more "casual fans", you have enough of those already.
It will probably end up like what interleague play did for MLB, it was good at first because of the novelty, now nobody really cares about it anymore and probably lessened the mystique of the World Series because you saw those teams play before.
In season tournament would be a waste of time. Don't forget that the entire purpose of the NBA season is to prepare you for the playoffs, the only tournament that matters for NBA players.
Not if there's a large monetary reward for players and teams. Imagine the players receiving significant compensation for winning the tournament, and the team gets to have an extra exception to sign players or something like that.
As others have said, there's precedent in basketball and other professional sports in Europe. It might not be a huge deal initially, but it might catch on.
How much incentive could there be for a max player to ball out on an mid-season tournament knowing that the prize will never be as great as the end of season tournament....also if they get hurt during that tournament, they probably ended their season.
Playoffs are less common in European soccer leagues. In the US where fans are used to having a regular season followed by a playoff, it seems like strange idea to me. A tournament added during the season would probably make me cringe.
After a few years, maybe I wouldn’t cringe as much, but it still won’t have much history behind it compared to the NBA Finals.
The only way I could really see myself caring that much is if winning the tournament means the team gets rewarded in the playoffs in April/May/June with a higher seed or extra home games (or both). But I’m not sure I like that idea either. It can’t be much worse than the NFL giving division winners with 7-9 and 8-8 records home games in the playoffs over a 12-4 team though.
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