NBA Hoping To Implement In-Season Tournament As Soon As 2023-24

Change is inevitable in sports, but some proposals receive a large amount of pushback.

The NBA’s latest proposal to implement an in-season tournament has already brought in plenty of skepticism as players and owners around the league are beginning to share their concerns.

Here’s how the proposed in-season tournament would work:

Current framework of NBA In Season Tournament as soon as 2023-24, per sources:

– Cup games through November
– 8 teams advance to single-elimination Final in December; other 22 continue with regular season
– All games part of normal 82-game schedule; one extra for two Final teams

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 9, 2022

Much like how European soccer conducts its in-season tournaments, NBA commissioner Adam Silver is looking to further shake up his league’s regular season format just two years removed from helping create the end-of-season Play In between each league’s seventh through tenth seeds.

The incentive to participate in a mid-season tournament is one that many around the league are currently questioning. In a large sense, the main question is, “what’s the point?”.

According to Collin Ward-Henninger of CBS Sports, a prize will be awarded to the eight final teams, but it’s currently still being discussed what that prize will be.

Getting fans excited for regular season games is what Silver and the rest of the league are envisioning, but not everybody involved in the league shares that same sentiment, with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban at the forefront of those that are criticizing the proposal.

“In terms of in-season tournament, I’m not a fan. I’m definitely not a fan,” Cuban said during an interview with USA Today’s Landon Buford last week. “I can see the Mavs just not participating at all or resting our best players. Until they give me the Larry O’Brien [trophy] for that, the prize is the prize, and you gotta keep your eyes on the prize.”

Mark Cuban on NBA In Season Tournament:

"In terms of in season tournament, I'm not a fan. I can see the Mavs not participating at all or resting our best players. Until they give me one of those [The Larry O'Brien Trophy] the prize is the prize."#MFFL #NBATwitter #Dallasin pic.twitter.com/lYYEc9OPzV

— Landon Buford (@LandonBuford) September 9, 2022

Just a few days following his interview with Buford, Cuban backtracked his comments on the mid-season tournament, according to NBA insider Marc Stein, as the 64-year-old said that he was ‘open’ to the idea.

Cuban was originally against the idea of the NBA’s Play-In tournament, calling the idea an “enormous mistake” before later changing his stance during the 2021-22 season.

The NBA is expected to finalize the format and prize for an in-season tournament before the 2022-23 season begins in mid-October, meaning that we will likely have significant changes to regular season schedules beginning in 2023-24.

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