Hello, hoops enthusiasts Are you looking forward to the NBA’s new In-Season Tournament debut?
Not at all?
Yes, the players also don’t.
The NBA has made a huge deal out of the introduction of this new tournament, as anyone who has seen even a small amount of the early part of the season can attest. This week marked the start of the entire event, which will conclude on December 9 with a final game. The last four teams will play in the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, with the winner taking home the coveted “NBA Cup” and the top players taking home a total of $500,000.
The whole idea behind it is to (obviously) drive up revenue, but it has incentivized players with the prize money and gives them something to play for early in the year. The only problem is a lot of them have no idea what’s going on.
“I’m not even going to lie. I don’t even know what’s going on,” Clippers guard Bones Hyland said, according to Joey Linn of Sports Illustrated. “I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know how it works, I don’t know anything.”
It’s been kind of a mess so far, with the league debuting new courts for the games that have drawn mostly negative reviews. Hyland isn’t alone in having a level of confusion about the whole thing, but even those who understand it don’t really care.
“I’m being completely honest, nobody cares about (winning the tournament), it’s the big one that we care about,” Grizzlies guard Marcus Smart said prior to the season, per CBS Sports. “I have mixed feelings on it, but it’s great to be able to play more basketball and I think that’s more of it, just those more games for the fans.”
The Celtics will play their first tournament game Friday against the Brooklyn Nets, but don’t seem too enthused with the novelty of what would normally just be a divisional game.
“I wouldn’t choose the word excited, but ready,” Jaylen Brown said, per CLNS Media. “We’ll be ready. If there’s basketball to be played, our group will be ready.”
Although many people manage to make the tournament games engaging (see NESNBets.com if you believe you fit that description), the competition as a whole feels kind of pointless. Emotions will undoubtedly shift for whichever side emerges victorious.
