'Tis The (In-)Season (Tournament)

The early returns on the league's audacious new move

As we established a couple weeks ago, it’s now November. Actually, it’s December. Look at the time! Again, and always, go North Brooklyn Baddies, but it’s time for indoor sports.

Sports like basketball! All those guys that were traded or drafted over the offseason are actually playing games now, which is cool.

Amid all the new additions, though — Parisian Ent category excepted — the biggest change in the NBA this year is structural. It’s a whole new ballgame. A little thing we’re calling the In-Season Tournament.

In some corners, the IST was roundly dismissed before it was given a chance. In others, it was applauded before earning any good will.

Much like those offseason trades and draft picks, all the takes tend to come in well before anyone has the evidence to render a verdict. Then we go back and adjust them later, maybe, if we feel like it.

Now it’s here, so while our sample size is still awfully small, it’s something. We have an idea of what this looks like. The knockout stage starts Monday — it’s as if I planned it — so let’s take a look at the field, shall we?

Right away, we can see that pretty much everyone here is really good. We’ve got the top title favorites in the East with the Celtics and Bucks, and though the one-true-king Nuggets are notably absent, we’ve got a quorum of teams expected to compete for second best in the West: the Kings, Suns, and yeah, the Lakers. Oh, and the Pelicans! Zion returns. We love it.

The lone entrant here that might not be a legit playoff team is the Pacers, who are absolute dynamite on offense but can’t guard anybody. They can really score — the name Haliburton hasn’t been this hot since Dick Cheney manned the East Wing — but this Indiana team can’t stop anybody on any wing.

So that’s all good. Good teams playing good basketball. Check. What else we got?

Ratings are up compared to regular games in the same time slots last year, though that’s an imperfect comparison for a few reasons, and we’ve yet to play any of the elimination games, so let’s hold on that one.

The floors are definitely a choice. I’ve seen both ‘hideous’ and ‘headache-inducing’ tossed around, and not without reason. But if they’ve accomplished anything, it’s this: I know what’s happening when I look up and see one of those freak-ass courts. So I guess that’s a differentiator too, if not my favorite.

This tournament will be wrapping up in Vegas, where the league has designs on an expansion team, so that’s not a coincidental perk. They want to prime an audience there, and this oughta help.

I’m not sure everyone totally understands how the tournament has been working and how the field was decided — I know I’m foggy on those details — but I’m not especially convinced that matters at this point. The bracket is now the bracket.

And finally, this is a pet project for Adam Silver. That’s no secret. So he must be encouraged to see what seemed very possible in the offseason — that this would get ruthlessly panned — not happen, and instead, get more praise than not, even from those who were skeptical before the season.

Why Not?

My general feeling on this is not especially novel, but I think it’s the salient point here. It’s a question. Why not try something new?

Tradition is a massive part of our sporting culture. That’s great. Stagnation is not. Grow or die, right?

That may sound like a VC tagline, but it’s real. It’s important for the NBA to be trying new things if it wants to keep growing its fanbase and thus its business.

Now. That all said, my biggest concern going into this is still there.

It has to do with a very American sensibility: what I’m going to call Chunnel Vision, which is not a reference to how the aforementioned Parisian Ent might travel to London, but rather a pretty dumb way of combining the words Championship and Tunnel.

Everything, in all of the major sports that Americans follow, is about winning the championship. The championship, not a championship.

The NBA Finals are the championship. The In-Season Tournament is a championship, if even that, and that’s a hard sell from the outset, specifically to a U.S. audience. We’re just not used to it.

This is the part where you ask: isn’t this the only way, apart from watching more European soccer, that Americans might get used to it?

Good point! And I hope they do. Getting people to care about this won’t be easy, and I do wonder what level of interest constitutes a success for them.

But in order to clear that biggest of hurdles, they first needed to jump another, which was getting the players to care.

No one took it for granted that NBA players, particularly stars, would take the games seriously and want to compete.

The fact that that’s a challenge says a lot about where the league is these days, and Tom Haberstroh had a great piece on that general theme this week.

At this point, though, there appears to be a good degree of buy-in, and the league is hoping that will compound with time rather than fade as the novelty does.

As reviews go, this won’t be my longest. But it’s a good one, so you oughta take it, Commissioner Silver.

So far, so good.

Also, This

• Oof. Tough week in the tent. Later Tash. I stand by my earlier comment, but give ‘em hell, Matty.

• You know what I’ve learned recently? I know I’ve already nominated But Was It A Catch? as the most inconsistent call in the NFL, but I’m starting to think false starts and pre-snap motion are making a play for the crown. I can’t begin to tell you what the standard is there, and I’ll be impressed if anyone else can tell me. Come through!

• So… is Mark Cuban running for President…? I still kinda doubt it, but sure looks like he’s clearing the runway, doesn’t it?

• My beloved Cardinals have signed three starting pitchers since last week, which somehow still doesn’t seem like enough. Also, how is it that only baseball has gotten a nickname for its offseason to stick? The Hot Stove. That’s what’s up. Other sports, try and make Fetch happen.

• LIV/PGA corner: the PGA Tour is looking to add a co-investor alongside the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, possibly as something of a mixer to dilute the whiff of PIF. Those reportedly in the running include Fenway Sports Group (who owns the Red Sox, duh, but also the Penguins and Liverpool), Eldridge Industries (who owns Chelsea and a chunk of the Dodgers), and Liberty Strategic Capital, a firm run by Trump’s old Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin. Remember that guy? Could be a fit.