So the NBA In-Season Tournament has been and gone. Does anyone actually know what it was all about? A quick search around the internet would suggest not.
Even Clippers guard Bones Hyland confessed: “I’m not going to lie, I don’t know what’s going on.” And if the actual NBA players are saying that, you know that there’s been a hiccup in management.
The NBA In-Season Tournament Explained
Announced earlier in 2023, the In-Season Tournament was supposed to add a new flavor to the tried-and-tested NBA league formula. Like the popular NBA All-Star game, it would serve as a tournament exhibition within the big NBA tournament itself. It involved all 30 teams, with Group Play games being scheduled every Tuesday and Friday between November 3rd and 28th.
Following the Group Play, eight teams advanced to the Knockout Rounds, with Semi-Finals determining who would play in the tournament Championship on December 9th.
All of the games across the Group Plays and the Knockouts contributed to the season tournament, acting as regular-season standings apart from the Championship, which was its own entity. Player and team stats – apart from the Championship – were also counted.
For those who don’t know, the Los Angeles Lakers lifted the NBA Cup, with each player being awarded $500,000 for their efforts. But rather than give them hearty congratulations, a lot of fans were left scratching their heads. Most of all, the question has been: What’s the point? If all the games are counted alongside the real season, why does there need to be a cup for those specific games?
Attendance and Interest
Because NBA-ception happened this year, we’ve been forced to come up with an answer for this. All we can think of is that the NBA is trying to find ways to increase audience attendance. While NBA attendance hasn’t been low per se, it does tend to experience a bit of a dip in the second quarter of the season, with numbers climbing back up after the New Year.
As the Group Plays were carried out, the NBA saw its best-ever November attendance, with an average of 18,208 fans per game. Broadcasts on ESPN and TNT were also strong, with a 26% increase in NBA viewership compared to last season. Fans also noticed an increase in intensity, with players being asked to put more into these early-season games in the hope of attaining a prize earlier than usual.
This is all well and good, but the confusion isn’t necessarily down to the concept, but how that concept was played out. According to various sources, one of the scrapped concepts for an In-Season Tournament involved an eight-game group stage, involving each team playing home and away before moving on to the knockouts.
Surely this would have made more sense and would have stretched out the tournament for longer than just two months. This is what many fans have suggested, at least, and it appears the NBA is open to studying new models for the future. According to executive vice president, Evan Walsh, tweaks may be warranted, and they would consider ‘bringing back some things that ended up on the cutting room floor’.
The Future of the In-Season Tournament
If we’re to step back and look at this without our NBA caps on, the idea is confused and pointless. But as mentioned before, attendance was good, and the games may have been better spectacles as a result.
With that being said, you can’t say that the In-Season Tournament wasn’t a success, it just needs a little fine-tuning. It’s unlikely we’re going to see exactly the same model in 2024, but for those seeing the NBA Cup as a distraction, it’s unlikely to go away either. We’re all just going to have to wait and see what happens.
