Zach Lowe Explains the New NBA Tournament

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4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2023

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

The rhythms of the NBA regular season have been remarkably consistent since the 82-game schedule was introduced in the 1960s –– a grueling six-month march toward the playoffs, where, from night to night, the importance of any one game can often feel pretty negligible. But this year, the league is shaking things up. Enter the In-Season Tournament, a five-week-long competition running alongside the regular season, and tipping off this Friday. The World Cup-style format starts with group play and culminates with the top eight teams facing off in a single elimination tournament and the champion winning the new NBA Cup. So today, Zach Lowe explains everything you need to know about the entire event –– how it’s more than a gimmick, why the players actually will care, and all the components that should make the entire affair pretty fun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Zach Low, the MBA season has already started, but we're about to embark on an MBA first
0:07.0	and in-season tournament that some believe is huge for the MBA and others believe is maybe
0:12.9	a little gimmicky and need some tweaking and almost everyone still has a bunch of questions
0:18.1	about.
0:19.1	But before we clear everybody's question, Q, was curious, when did you first hear about
0:24.6	this concept?
0:25.8	Oh, years ago.
0:33.4	It's been the MBA's dream for at least five years.
0:37.8	Probably it's been in the ether of, oh, they'd like to do this.
0:40.7	Maybe this will be the year they proposed this at the Board of Governors.
0:43.2	Here's exactly how this would work or here's one way this could work.
0:46.5	It's been mentioned for quite a long time.
0:50.8	I remember throughout Adam Silver's tenure, there being conversations of, hey, if the
0:57.3	MBA is a global game, let's sort of follow these model of these international soccer
1:01.9	leagues and create another enticing in-season tournament for our league.
1:06.9	Was that basically what the thought process was?
1:10.5	Yeah, I mean, A, make the regular season matter a little bit more.
1:16.8	So, you know, another team will win something.
1:20.5	There's not just one champion at the end of the season, though really when we're being
1:23.7	serious, there is going to be one MBA champion, but still there'll be another thing that
1:27.6	you can win.
1:28.6	And to win it, you need to care about a subset of regular season games, maybe more than
	...

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