For those who are not aware, the NBA added an in-season tournament this year to make the regular season more interesting to watch. Each player on the winning team will be given a $500,000 bonus and receive the “NBA Cup”.
In recent years, the NBA regular season has been “can-miss TV”. The league has been plagued with the load management virus which has made a lot of fans question whether or not it’s worth it to spend money on tickets to a regular season game in case their favorite player decides to take the night off.
The NBA had hoped that the in-season tournament would alleviate some of that and 10+ games into the season it remains to be seen whether this will actually work or not.
For true championship contenders, the in-season tournament should not decide how hard you are going to push your star players.
Take the Sixers for example. Nick Nurse should not run Joel Embiid into the ground to win the in-season tournament. Let’s be clear, the main goal of the season is to win an NBA Championship, not the NBA Cup. For as bad load management is for the attendance, teams are doing it for a reason.
Embiid is a 7’ 280lb Center who moves like a guard, he needs to be rested periodically on the back end of back-to-backs if there is any hope he is going to be able to be effective come March.
The in-season tournament is a very cool idea, but in no way should it get in the way of the true goal of winning in the NBA Finals.
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