NBA announces intriguing In-Season Tournament for 2023-24

Ryan Conway
September 9, 2022
Sixers
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The NBA has officially announced plans to introduce an In Season Tournament as early as 2023. The league has kicked the idea around for a few years now and the success of the Play-In rounds must have shown Adam Silver all he needed to see.

Shams Charania tweeted the format of the NBA In-Season Tournament:

Current framework of NBA In Season Tournament as soon as 2023-24, per sources:

– Cup games through November
– 8 teams advance to single-elimination Final in December; other 22 continue with regular season
– All games part of normal 82-game schedule; one extra for two Final teams
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 9, 2022

If you don’t exactly know how to feel about the In-Season Tournament, you’re certainly not alone. When the idea was initially proposed, basketball fans everywhere were concerned about adding additional games.

The NBA has assuaged those fears, stating the tournament will be somehow baked into the regular season’s 82-game schedule. I’m inquisitive as to how that will work out.

If it makes regular season games matter more, I’m all for it. Competing for added championship hardware (and financial incentives) seems like a damn good way to inject some meaning into early games.

Even so, I’m an NBA skeptic. I love the sport, but Adam Silver is a weasel. I’m sure he’ll find a way to spite the Sixers in the tournament’s inaugural playing.

Some criticize the move as a cheap attempt by the NBA to mimic European soccer. Well, those people are morons because it’s clearly copying European basketball, which has both domestic leagues and a European circuit for top teams.

Soccer has that too, and probably had it first, but that doesn’t mean there’s no proof of concept in the form of the second-best basketball league in the world.

That said, I remain skeptical. But I’d be lying if I said the promise of more meaningful NBA games didn’t have me heavily intrigued.

That being said, just remember who we are dealing with here.