The NBA’s in-season tournament is happening.
The league will conduct the final four of its first-ever in-season tournament from Dec. 7-9, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports. The semifinals and final will take place in Las Vegas. The news breaks as Las Vegas prepares to host NBA Summer League games and the highly anticipated debut of Victor Wembanyama.
Per the report, statistics for the tournament will count for the regular season except for those from the championship game.
Yahoo Sports’ Ben Rohrbach reported on details of the tournament in April shortly after the new collective bargaining agreement, which included the in-season tournament, was announced.
Teams will be assigned to six intraconference pools of five (not necessarily by division).
On designated days during the first six weeks of the regular season, teams will play four group games — one each against the other teams in their pool (everyone plays two at home and two on the road).
The winners of each pool and two wild-card teams will advance to a single-elimination tournament (tiebreakers to determine the eight participants, such as point differential, are still being discussed).
The semifinals and finals of the tournament will be held at a neutral site.
Players for the tournament champion will each receive $500,000.
Further details will be revealed Saturday at NBA Con, a first-time fan event in Las Vegas that the league’s promoting as a sort of basketball Comic-Con that takes place adjacent to Summer League action. The tournament will mimic those of European soccer and basketball leagues that pit top teams against each other for a midseason prize. It’s literally and figuratively a foreign concept for most American fans, who prioritize sports leagues’ end-of-season championships as the only prizes that matter.
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The WNBA holds an in-season Commissioner’s Cup competition that designates certain regular season games that count toward the Commissioner’s Cup standings. It is the most direct American sports comparison to what the NBA will undertake.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has long been a proponent of the idea as one to add intrigue and revenue to a long and sometimes monotonous regular season schedule. Selling NBA fans on it will prove a significant challenge. There will surely be skeptics among the league’s players, as well.
But now Silver gets his wish and a chance to prove the skeptics wrong with an idea that’s gaining traction in the American professional sports landscape.
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