Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
According to various league sources, the NBA is taking the first steps in adding a mid-season tournament to the regular-season schedule. Intended as a way to increase competitiveness and urgency, having a one-and-done elimination style bracket in the middle of the season comes with both major benefits and serious challenges.
So far, the community has been divided on what to make of it. In one corner, critics have said that it’s an unnecessary change that will only add an extra burden to teams and their top players. In the other corner, some fans are intrigued with the idea and imagine an intense playoff-like atmosphere.
For a while there, everyone assumed Mavericks owner Mark Cuban fell into the former category of people — but he recently denied that to be the case in a recent chat with Marc Stein.
Mark Cuban Denies That He’s Against A Mid-Season Tourney, Says That The Quotes Being Pushed About His Views On The Subject Are ‘Old’
In a series of Tweets, Stein detailed Cuban’s response to the progress of a mid-season tournament, and he has apparently shifted his views from what they used to be.
Spoke to Mavs owner Mark Cuban, who said that quotes circulating about his NBA in-season tournament views are “old” and that he is “actually open to it” as a concept for the 2023-24 season, saying he believes “it has a chance to build interest” if adopted for the 2023-24 season.
He even came up with an idea for what kind of rewards the tournament winner could get.
Cuban, though, told me he is a proponent of expanding the NBA draft from its current two rounds to four and proposing that the winner of an NBA in-season cup gets the top pick in both the third and fourth rounds of an expanded draft. .. with the proviso that picks can’t be traded.
Considering the overwhelming success of the play-ins, the NBA really has nothing to lose by testing out a mid-season tournament. In the worst case, they could just remove it from the schedule or make adjustments that will help it fit into the NBA calendar easier.
In the best case, it could drastically increase interest and excitement in the regular season, which has been getting progressively less competitive over the years.
Either way, Adam Silver seems dead set on trying it out at some point, so we can expect to see some form of a mid-season tournament within the next few years.
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