Tonight I turned on my TV expecting to see the news and saw the Lakers being presented with the “NBA Cup” by winning the “in-season tournament”. I’ve never been more confused in my life. WTF is this dumbass shit?
The NBA had two choices:
1. Cut the regular season down because no one gives a shit about 89% of it and start at Christmas, but this also means cut your media revenue
Or
2. Find a way to make more of the regular season watchable and this is where the in season tournament was born, which is modeled after European cups in basketball and soccer. Winners get like $500k of free money so that's cool for the bench guys
It was a funky experiment but has been a success basically any way you slice it. TV ratings are up. Lots of good games that had a playoff feel and the players really gave a shit.