Every player on the Los Angeles Lakers, the 2023 NBA In-Season Tournament champions, will be getting $500,000 as prize money, but a bigger prize might be on offer in the future. As per an ESPN report, the NBA could guarantee future champions a spot in the play-in tournament.
“While a top-6 berth was universally seen as a bridge too far among league insiders spoken to by ESPN, one idea that had more support was guaranteeing the winner of the tournament at least the seventh spot, meaning they would get two home games to earn their way into the playoffs.”
The first-ever tournament was a massive success, as we witnessed tremendous action in the games. There was talk earlier about whether the players would care considering they’d just be getting money for winning it and they certainly seemed to.
Add in the winning team getting a play-in spot and the stakes would obviously be even higher. Should it be done though? I don’t believe so. There are a fair few issues that come with making that change.
First of all, this decision would mean that seven tournament games would be considered more important than 76 regular season games when it comes to making the play-in tournament. That doesn’t seem quite right and it would also somewhat defeat the purpose of the tournament itself.
The NBA had introduced the play-in to give an incentive for teams to play hard toward the end of the season. If one of the spots is already taken, then you’d have fewer teams in the mix, and as a result, more of them would be inclined to pack it in.
Bigger prize money and advantages such as having tiebreakers over every team in the league would be a fairer reward, and that’s what Myles Turner suggested as well. Another potential bigger reward could be that the winning team gets the home-court advantage in a playoff series or even for the entire postseason if they make it in.
Tyrese Haliburton Suggested That The Winner Should Get A Playoff Spot
The idea of guaranteeing the winner a spot in the playoffs was seen as a bridge too far by the insiders as per the ESPN report. Tyrese Haliburton, however, was all for it and felt it would be the greatest incentive.
“I think the greatest incentive for everybody to do it would be an automatic playoff bid,” Haliburton said. “If it was a playoff spot, I think everyone would take it very, very serious, right? I think the older teams would take it serious. But then it might … what would [the winning team] do then?”
I should make it clear he said this before the tournament started, so this wasn’t a case of Haliburton saying this because his team was potentially going to win. He did recognize, though, that this would be difficult and would come with issues like some older teams not caring about the regular season after winning it.
While we can’t say for sure whether there would be some sort of change with regard to playoff or play-in spots, some sort of changes will certainly be made. For starters, the venue for the semifinals and the final might not be Las Vegas next year. The league still hasn’t decided whether Vegas will permanently host the games or not.
Another change could be regarding the point differential. We saw a lot of players like Jayson Tatum express their displeasure regarding it, as it led to teams running up the score to improve their point differential. Many weren’t fans of those colorful courts either, so expect some sort of change.
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