While some high-profile players and team owners have griped about the NBA’s newly-introduced play-in tournament, the format is working “spectacularly well” and has virtually no downside, contends John Hollinger of The Athletic.
As Hollinger writes, the new wrinkle has generated excitement at more levels of the standings, with teams in the 4-6 range fighting to hold their positions and clubs in the 9-12 range trying to win games rather than pivoting to tanking. As a result, we’re getting more interesting late-season matchups, with fewer teams coasting into the postseason.
“I think it’s great,” one assistant coach told Paolo Uggetti of The Ringer. “It gives lesser and younger teams something to play for toward the end of the season. It makes teams not tank and helps younger teams grow and develop.”
The play-in tournament will see the No. 7 team host the No. 8 team, with the winner claiming the seventh seed in the conference. To determine the eighth seed, the loser of that game would play the winner of a game between the Nos. 9 and 10 teams.
As Uggetti points out, one counter-argument against the play-in format being implemented in 2020/21 specifically is that COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on some teams’ seasons, affecting player availability and impacting players’ performances even after they return. A franchise hit hard during the season by COVID-19 may end up in the play-in tournament when it should have been a top-six seed. Additionally, a club affected by the virus during the next week or two could be missing key players as it tries to win a play-in game.
“The apocalypse option is what if a No. 6 seed or No. 7 seed gets hit with COVID?” a Western Conference general manager said to Uggetti. “And they have to play in the play-in, lose, and then they don’t make the playoffs?”
That would certainly be a worst-case scenario for the league, but it’s more of an argument against holding a season during a pandemic at all than an argument against the play-in tournament. A player who contracts the virus typically misses at least two or three weeks, so an entire playoff round could conceivably be affected by bad COVID-19 luck — not just one or two play-in games.
Other people around the league who are lukewarm on the play-in concept have suggested that the format devalues the regular season results and that play-in games should be conditional based on the standings. For instance, if the No. 8 seed has a substantial cushion on the No. 9 team, then perhaps a play-in shouldn’t be necessary.
“What if the No. 7 seed has a four-game lead on No. 8? And now it’s gonna almost be like Game 7 of the Finals, win or go home? It’s not really fair,” one Eastern Conference executive said to Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report. “Anything can happen. And someone can get hurt.”
There’s some validity to that complaint, but the NBA has long allowed more than half of its 30 teams to automatically qualify for the postseason, which is something of a devaluation of the regular season in its own right. For a club that finishes seventh in a conference of 15 teams in the regular season, perhaps a favorable path to a playoff spot is a more appropriate reward than an automatic playoff berth.
Concerns about subjecting strong No. 7 seeds to a play-in game may also overstate the potential volatility of the tournament. If a seventh-seeded team finished the regular season with a significantly better record than the other three clubs in the play-in tournament, there’s no reason that team shouldn’t be able to win at least one of two potential home games against those lesser opponents.
Hollinger touches on this point in his column, responding to critics who say the NBA would be shooting itself in the foot if a possible contender like the Lakers or Celtics has to participate in the play-in tournament and is eliminated before the playoffs even begin.
As Hollinger observes, if those teams can’t win one of two play-in games to clinch a playoff spot, it’s probably safe to assume they weren’t going to be legitimate contenders anyway. If the Lakers finish seventh, the likeliest outcome is that the NBA would get great TV ratings for the play-in tournament and L.A. would ultimately earn a playoff spot anyway, Hollinger adds.
Evan Wasch, who is the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball strategy and analytics and has become the spokesperson for issues relating to the play-in tournament, tells Uggetti that he values positive or negative feedback from teams and will take it into account as the league considers possible tweaks going forward. By the sounds of it though, the play-in format is probably here to stay.
“I’ve talked to the league at length about this, and it’s not going anywhere,” the aforementioned Western GM said to Uggetti. “They studied the European (soccer) models and they want to expand winning as much as they can to other markets and teams. There’s only one NBA champion, and this is a way for more teams to make it to the playoffs and for them to have the broader market appeal of winning something.”
That’s unfortunate
Looks like LBJ no longer has as much control over the league as he used to.
I know sweetie, change is always hard.
Unfortunately, it’s the only thing that stays the same…
People wanted to rearrange conference due to mediocre teams being in a few years ago, now people want to just add more mediocrity
Silver really trying to push for too much revenue growth without bastardising the product…this man is a disgrace to the NBA and it’s history…but the media owns him and the product he runs…he is not a commissioner but a robot drone.
In a shorter season there’s no issue but in a regular season it’s such a bad idea. Why play 82 games to not have the seeds set in stone? We don’t need a tournament to see who loses to the 1 and 2 seeds.
I love it !!!
Agree. And I think it’s a good point that if a team can’t win 2 games they probably weren’t going deep anyway.
As far as injuries (or in this season covid, which is a totally different issue than the play in tournament), they’ll always be random. Trying to plan around their likelihood is a waste of time.
people: the regular season doesnt matter
also people: making the regular season more important doesnt matter
Yeah, I probably could’ve hit this point harder in the article, but the argument that this devalues the regular season in any way is crazy to me. Getting a top-six seed is even more important now. Getting a 7/8 seed is still very important (they only have to win one play-in game instead of two, stacking the odds heavily in their favor). And getting a 9/10 seed is actually good now instead of essentially being the worst possible outcome for a team.
Without the play-in tournament, the Mavs, Lakers, and Blazers would all be coasting now, maybe even TRYING to finish seventh because a matchup with the Suns or Jazz could be more favorable than playing the Clippers in round one.
Teams have always avoided teams in playoffs. Nothing new here. 9 out of 10 times. The real Team always advances. As long as they are healthy.
@ KnickerbockerAl The point is that the home stretch of the regular season is much more interesting if the sixth place team is aggressively trying to hang onto its spot to avoid a play-in game rather than benching players in the hopes of losing and getting a more desirable matchup by falling to seventh.
Absolutely right Luke. I love this.
Whether or not one perspective is crazy, it is an opinion, not a fact. I think it’s crazy to think the play-ins are Not a tart-up, part of America’s sugar-dump culture. The more games played, the less memorable any of them are. Why stop at twenty teams in, when there are thirty in the league? Whatever the rationale is for 20 not 16, works also for 30 not 20, and 32 not 30.
@ x%sure That’s one way to look at it. I’d argue that only guaranteeing 12 playoff spots instead of 16 at the end of the regular season is a step in the other direction.
If we are going to blow up 16 I would rather jump to 32 including two more expansion teams, using American HighSchools as the model. College too, which would only add a week and a half more to the tourney! And that’s what they would be: all-in playoffs. And different brackets could have different rules.
I feel like 20 is a weird half-measure.
You want to keep out the crappiest teams. You can’t be a perennial loser and make the tournament. Yes a lot of teams make it in maybe too many, but you can’t let everyone in. You have to draw the line somewhere. So is it 15 teams or is it 20 that have an opportunity? Not all will agree on the number but it’s definitely not every team.
Inviting everyone has not hurt HS tournament playoffs. The selective NCAA tourney is an annual fiasco, and the elite NBA playoff is not elite enough.
No big deal though even though I keep posting on it!
They got 82 gms to settle it. I don’t get it. I guess they don’t know Football leagues in Europe. Don’t play best out of 7. So it’s easier to win 1 gm big to move on. So in a sense they do have a chance. They can just play for ties. Where in NBA like amk1920 says. We don’t need a gm to see who loses to 1 n 2 seed. We got 82 gms for that. This ain’t soccer. I mean you can’t even get the freaking name right. There’s Football in the WORLD. And theres American Football. Soccer ????
But let’s say that team on 7th seed has 8 wins that one at 9th seed. Where would be point to play that tournament. Also have in mind that for example team on 10th seed is one that does not suit well for 7th seed. But in regular season they have at least 5 wins more than them. Would be that fair?
Can’t answer that question since everything before it is nonsensical.
Not sure of Al’s point, but you know, different countries have different words for things. Way south it is called futbol. We do not have to follow England’s usage of English… even in England, English has changed radically. I call ours AE.
De”Aaron Fox should miss 10 days due to Covid, but he could miss 30 days
If Schroeder miss 30 days, Lakers could turn out to be play-in guys
Many fans are enjoyable to see Lakers ….
Lakers will live in luxury tax hell
Next year Lakers could join play in game again due to injury
Claiming European soccer as a model for the play-ins does not make logical sense, because soccer leagues are much more elite the the NBA. They don’t even have playoffs; they have promotion & relegation. NO teams qualify for playoffs! They do have up to three in-season tournaments and that is nice but that cannot be duplicated in the NBA without half the fans saying they hope their teams lose the minor trophies to prepare for the major one. Silver must live in his own head, seeing what he wants to see.
Silver will probably talk about imitating Eurosoccer’s Superleague too, even though that has bombed so far and created enemies and an existential-like crisis. He does not like innovation as much as he wants to destroy tradition.
As a football fan (I am from the uk) and have followed the sport as long as I have basketball, each league outside of the top league goes through a playoff to get a final promotion slot. Albeit a max of three games but a playoff nonetheless.
Additionally, the Champions League has group play then a home and away series. The only one off is the final championship game.
I doubt Silver wants to imitate the minor leagues. lol The top one is called the Championship! IDK if the Championship playoff champion wins the Championship, but the process is about promotion.
Anyway.
The CL is not really a playoff, it’s a tournament, qualification based on last year’s results. My point was, team status is based on RS results, not playoffs. Standings last all year long and are based on match results, not polls.
I like it!
In my opinion, moreso than tanking (as mentioned earlier), I think it’ll make teams think about doin a little bit less “load management/rest/dnp’s” because a couple losses doing that could have implications at the end of the season – especially if some players have to legitimately sit due to being nicked up and potentially lose a couple games.
Just my opinion – don’t kill me.
I started out not liking this format when announced under the assumption the 7 and 8 seed are already blah, why add more?
Ive completely changed my view 180 degrees since . This has so many good side effects IMO
1- Keeps more cities involved longer
2- Adds value to 6 seed race
3- Devalues blah 7/8 seed which I like
4- Extra Revenue
5- Less teams selling off before deadline
6- Less mid season tanking
7- More teams taking a shot in the off-season
8- Less player DNP’s w greater emphasis on seeding
9- Gives top 6 seeds some nice rest
10- Its Going To Be Great TV!!!!!
They just need to tweak it. Have it for the 8-10 seeds. Anything more than that is too much.
Ugh realistically they need to reduce the # of playoff teams…go down to 6 in each conference, top 2 get byes and Do a best of 5 in round 1……the more teams which make the playoffs makes the NBA more $$$ but as a fan I feel the product is watered down with so many playoff teams…and also the playoffs already take enough time as it is
And I understand the league wants to maximize $$ so I can see why they want the play in