5 Ways to Improve the NBA In-Season Tourney
The NBA Tournament is a Winner. It can Be Better Yet.
The NBA has been working for a long time to get people interested and watching games earlier in the season, in October and November. The problems have always been that the games earlier in the season matter less and there is this giant, enormous, cash cow of a sport called Football that draws most of the attention.
Taking its cue from the WNBA and World Soccer organizations, the NBA began this season the “NBA Cup”; an in-season tournament that groups teams into round robin pools, with the winner proceeding to a “Knockout Round” tournament maxed at 3 games. Teams not making the Knockout Round are paired up with another conference team based on record for another game.
By most accounts, the In-Season Tournament has been a huge success. NBA ratings are up and some of the games have been absolutely stellar to watch. Injuries and mediocrity have marred the NFL season so far, and the NBA is building on its growing international stars. It seems apparent the NBA Cup is here to stay.
But that doesn’t mean it has been perfect or can’t be better. Below are PurpleAmerica’s five suggestions on improving the in-season tournament.
First, you have to ditch the eyesore of the Basketball Courts.
I get the desire to spice up the courts to make them stand out that this isn’t your ordinary basketball game. I like the idea; the courts SHOULD look a little different for these games. But really, most of the color choices and schemes are really hard on the eyes. They certainly don’t translate well to television at all. I mean look at the Chicago Bulls bright red above? How long can you lok at that without averting your eyes a little. The Miami Heat had the same color scheme just brighter. Our vote for the worst colors, however, go to the Pelicans who concocted this color blind court.
While we are at it, quit making the basketball court look flat and composite like volleyball courts. Keep the parquet floors and the seams and hardwoods. Not that I’m a purist, but the multi-universal room semi-volleyball floors look artificial and diminish the product.
Don’t restrict the pools by conference.
One of the things about the NBA Championship is that there is always one team from the East, and one from the West. Unfortunately, the two teams that make the finals are not always the best two teams; that usually occurs in the Conference Finals. What if the In Season Tournament wasn’t confined by Conference? Imagine a Boston-Milwaukee or a Denver-Lakers Final. Imagine if 6 of the 8 teams in the Knockout Rounds were from the same Conference? That would be a killer tournament to watch and would truly give insight into who the best teams really were.
Make the Pools even MORE random.
This one ties into the one above it, but what if you made the pool choices truly random by draw? The NBA split out different tiers based on record and then drew them into pools one team from each tier into each pool. But what if they didn’t? First off, the show where you revealed the pools/games would be huge. You could still split out the best of the best into their own pools, much like FIFA does it for the World Cup and the NBA did here. But everyone else? Good luck. I mean, can you picture how cool it would be if there were a Pool of Death? Every game do or die! You’d draw eyeballs for every single game.
Raise the Stakes
This being the inaugural NBA Cup, there is a level of novelty to it. That and the players get a really nice bonus for winning the whole thing. But if you really want to make it interesting, you have to raise the stakes. What if the NBA Cup winner was guaranteed a playoff spot? I mean, if you win the NBA Cup it’s unlikely, barring major injury, that you wouldn’t make the playoffs, but it’s something the NBA could market and promote all season. Or what if you were granted an “ultimate tiebreaker” when it came to seeding in the playoffs? It would be a trump card that would require a team to have a better record outright against you, and otherwise ensure you got the higher seed. That would be huge. I saw online someone suggested automatic home court during the playoffs, which would be interesting but would remove some of the tension from those last two or three weeks of the season when people fight for positioning. I like the intention with that, but we can’t remove some of the natural tension built during the regular season title runs. The NBA needs to get creative as to making the stakes for winning be more consequential.
Condense the Schedule.
The way the NBA managed it, the games were intermixed with other regular season games with Tournament games occurring on Tuesdays and Fridays throughout the month. I get it. I’m convinced they did this not just to draw ratings for the tournament games, but also confuse others into watching games they didn’t know were just regular games. Nah. Don’t do that. Put the tournament games back to back to back and then follow it up with the Knockout Rounds the following week. Build the appeal and the momentum and excitement to a crescendo like March Madness. Don’t draw it out over more than a month. Bringing in all that attention is going to get casual viewers interested in your new and upcoming stars and get them hooked. They’ll watch the whole year. Doing it the way the NBA did it this year gives people an excuse not to watch some games.
Including these suggestions would greatly improve the NBA Cup Tournament and really improve basketball altogether early in the season.
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
One of the appeals of March Madness is it’s “Survive and Advance; lose and go home” ethos. If all things go according to the seeding, the Championship should contain two #1 seeds in it. Since 1985 when the NCAA started seeding teams accordingly, this has happened only 7 times, the last time in 2017 when North Carolina beat Gonzaga.
Last year the highest seeded team to make the Final Four was only a 4 seed.
PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject
As a Bucks fan, let me just say, “Go Bucks.”
Since it is practically win or go home (I’m bitter because the wolves lost one and were out), can’t we just make it a big tourney like march madness? Give a few teams with the best records byes in the first round, and do a single elimination tourney!