This NBA season will be a bit different this year thanks to a new addition and a new reason to play at their best level. For the first couple of months of the season, teams are playing for a spot in the Tournament.
Players in the NBA have mixed opinions of the tournament mainly because of the narrative that there are already too many games in the season. People say that 82 games is too many games and that it should go down to about 60 games. The tournament only adds games and the players who think there should be fewer games are obviously against the tournament.
It’s good for the NBA in the sense that it gives players more incentive to play at their highest level. Players have to play for a spot in the tournament or better yet maybe even play for a bye in the tournament. A bye is whenever a team has to advance to the next round without playing in the first round of the tournament because there is an odd number of teams. So, that makes teams want to play at a higher level so that they get a good spot in the tournament.
People who watch the NBA will see how teams like to ease the workload of their star players so that they can be 100% for when the playoffs come around. To see the NBA make a Midseason Tournament, kind of works against that strategy to rest your player. It’s more games that can honestly be looked at as insignificant compared to regular season games and playoff games. The incentive is that players get paid when they win the tournament. The winners get paid 500k a player on their contracts, 200k for the Runner Ups, 100k for the team who loses in the Semi-Finals and the team that loses in the Quarter-Finals gets paid 50k.
