Unsurprisingly, NBA commissioner Adam Silver confirmed this week during a news conference in Paris that the in-season tournament will “no doubt be back” next season, per Joe Vardon of The Athletic.
According to Silver, the league will probably make “a couple tweaks” to the way the tournament works, but it’s not likely to undergo a significant overhaul. The commissioner mentioned the tiebreaker rules, the appearance of the courts, and the name of the tournament itself as some things worth looking at.
“Beyond that, as we’re talking to television partners and maybe figuring out exactly when the best time of year is to (hold the tournament), maybe it will make sense to make some other modifications to the format,” Silver said.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- After announcing in October that its data doesn’t support the idea that load management reduces a player’s injury risk, the NBA sent out a more in-depth report supporting that thesis to teams and select media members this week, writes Tim Bontemps of ESPN. Bontemps, who outlines the findings in more detail, notes that the study doesn’t suggest load management increases a player’s injury risk — it simply concludes there’s no discernible correlation one way or the other.
- USC point guard Isaiah Collier, a candidate to be a top-five or top-10 pick in the 2024 NBA draft, will miss the next four-to-six weeks due to a hand injury, the school announced on Thursday night (Twitter link). As Chris Mannix of SI.com observes (via Twitter), Collier’s absence could open up more minutes for another one of the Trojans’ NBA prospects: Bronny James.
- Jeremy Woo of ESPN.com (Insider link) polled 20 NBA executives and scouts to get their thoughts on the 2024 draft class and the idea of a two-day draft. According to Woo, 12 of his 20 respondents expect Alexandre Sarr to be the No. 1 overall pick this June, while 13 respondents predicted that the 2013 draft class – considered one of the worst in the couple decades – will end up with more All-Stars (three) than the 2024 class.
- The NBA issued an update on All-Star voting on Thursday, announcing that Lakers forward LeBron James and Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo are the leading vote-getters to date. The tightest race is in the Eastern Conference backcourt, where Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton has a comfortable lead, with Trae Young (Hawks) narrowly edging Damian Lillard (Bucks) and Donovan Mitchell (Cavaliers) for the No. 2 spot.
NBE National Basketball Entertainment or SBA Silvers Basketball Association? Which one since silver wants to change everything. West logo out and Kobe or LeBron logo in. SMH. Plus the Celtics did what the Nets did recently, will they get fined too?
To the last one: No, because that game was entirely out of hand by halfway through the second quarter. That’s just an in-game decision, not throwing away a winnable game for “rest” that even your players were against.
I know Mikal wants to play every game and he is what every player in the league should strive to be but the Celtics could of came back from that. I appreciate your reply though. Players sit out all the time now but we fine Brooklyn because it’s obvious. Everyone resting every other game making up fake injuries. Celtics could of tried harder. Just because Tatum and Brown are not making shots doesn’t mean the game is over.
It wasn’t just Tatum and Brown (all the starters were awful), and I agree that they could have tried, but a halftime deficit of 37 is kind of a death knell. When’s the last time a team came back from that big of a gap? The last time a Celtics team even had a halftime deficit that big it was 1967.
A 2 day draft is dumb and would be a disaster.
A disaster? How so?
Really, u think people will tune in for a rd2 draft on the 2nd day to watch college SR, and overseas players nobody knows be drafted. Those guys are G-League/overseas guys.
Why is that a disaster? If you’re not interested you don’t have to watch.
I would never tune in to watch late rounds of the NFL draft — many of those guys will never play — but plenty of people watch. It’s content in the off-season. Unless you have some stake in the network or television rights I’m not sure why you even care. Disaster is a massive overstatement.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
The funniest comment I heard about the tourney courts was, “I felt like I was watching a Boise State home football game…”
I like the idea of a two day draft. But I think a Vecenie’s suggestion of splitting up with lottery day 1 and everything else afterwards makes the most sense.
Showcasing the 2nd round seems mostly pointless. Not a single casual fan will care. The coverage is likely to be poor on day 2 unless they have real draft analysts on the panels.
Completely agree, feels like only the basketball junkies are likely to tune in for Day 2 if its only the second round. I wonder if they could pair that broadcast with a high school or G-League showcase game, let people see the talent of the future while tuning in for 2nd round picks. Probably still wouldn’t drive a significantly increased viewership but there’d be something else to sell at least.
Day 2 of the draft will mostly be recapping day 1 and the 2nd round picks will looks even less important because of it…
With Dumars leading the charge there’s no doubting that report is a rose tinted “good old days” report from someone yelling at the kids to get off their lawn… It’s a case by case deal, it’s not going to be clear one way or ther other because of freak accident injuries occuring…
Don’t they almost have to give round 2 it’s own day? So they can get through “with the next selection, Oklahoma city-by way of Houston, through Miami, Denver, Detroit, Washington, Dallas, and..Oklahoma city-selects SomeGuy WeNeverHearduv, from Lithuania. His rights have been traded to the Pelicans.” Or something like that, for roughly half the selections?