One other caveat about Saturday night: It involved LeBron and the Lakers, who count Vegas as an extension of their home market. (The one glaring exception being the Lakers’ 44-point rout of the Pelicans, who apparently were there just to prove that, well, not everyone cared equally.)Ģ023 NBA In-Season Tournament Winners and Losers The In-Season Tournament Offered a Window Into the NBA’s Future The NBA In-Season Tournament’s Real Test Begins Now And most of those games were legitimately intense. The Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics sounded genuinely disappointed after losing in the knockout round. The Indiana Pacers, who lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the title game, clearly wanted it. just answered with a pretty emphatic “Yes.” LeBron wanted that trophy, and whatever amorphous meaning it carries. The biggest question I had about the in-season tournament was, effectively, Will anyone care about a made-up trophy won in December? LeBron James and Co. See “ synthetic ball” and “ shortened 3-point line.”) Experiment enough, and you’re sure to produce a few flops. But it’s a credit to Silver that his administration is so willing to tinker, whether with rules and game play or the broader structure of the season. Some innovations have fared better than others. Remember the shirseys? (Ack.) The award show? (Double ack.) The Clorox Clutch Challenge? (No, I don’t remember it, either.) Under Silver, the league has adopted coaches’ challenges, flopping penalties, lottery reform, a play-in tournament, an earlier trade deadline, a longer All-Star break, and a shorter preseason. And there have been lots of them in his 10 years as commissioner. Will Amazon or Apple or someone else shell out tens of millions to broadcast the tournament in the future? We’ll see.īut as a basic basketball and entertainment endeavor, I’d say the first-ever NBA Cup was a qualified success-one of the better experiments of the Adam Silver era. Was it worth the investment, the hype, the endless stream of Michael Imperioli commercials? That’s for the bean counters to assess. Was the in-season tournament a ratings bonanza? Not exactly. Click here to read the The Ringer’s 2023-24 NBA rankings.Īs a business matter, it’s all a bit murkier.

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