The NBA In-Season Tournament (or IST as the kids call it) came to a close over the weekend with LeBron James and the LA Lakers hoisting the inaugural NBA cup and James taking MVP honors. It was the league’s first foray into the kinds of in-season tournaments that are commonplace in soccer and, by all accounts, it was a huge success.
The NBA, for years, has struggled to grab interest from fans early in the season. For many, the “official” start to the NBA year is Christmas Day, when a spate of games spend hours on the TV while people exchange gifts and eat themselves into comas. This year, the tournament, which was played as part of the season with specific games, dates and groupings, generated some early year excitement for the league as it culminated in the title game in Las Vegas. Here are some takeaways.
The NBA finally mattered in November.
With the baseball postseason and the start of both college and pro football, the NBA tends to get a little lost early in the season. It doesn’t help that teams are still figuring things out and, quite often, teams play quite differently in February than in November. So, it’s tough to blame the Association for seeking remedies. What the IST did was give people more than one reason to watch and players a good reason to play hard even at the start of the season. Is the IST title as big a deal as the NBA championship? Clearly not now and maybe not ever, but just having something of a change made a difference.
The games counted, mostly.
While it might be worth tweaking when the games between group teams are scheduled next year, the fact that every game save the title game was simply part of team’s 82-game schedule was smart. Not only did it not tack games onto an already long season, but it made each game doubly important. At first, it felt strange, but players got into it (the bonus cash for the winner didn’t hurt) and fans did eventually as well. It got people scoreboard watching and paying attention to the standings by December.
Scoring was through the roof.
League scoring overall is way, way up, something the NBA has done everything it could to encourage and change rules to make happen. But, one interesting quirk of the IST was how they handled tiebreakers. Because there were so few games per group, the league made point differential a part of the equation for determining ranking within group play. It encouraged teams to win and win big, something we would never see in the normal course of games as teams shut down offenses to not embarrass opponents. But that went flying out the window with the IST rules and it made the games fun. No more stars sitting out fourth quarters with their teams up big.
The courts were killer (even if you hated them).
The controversial and hyper colorful floors the NBA utilized for the IST games were impossible to ignore. The bright colors made for some squinting for folks used to the standard hardwood when broadcast in HD. But here’s the thing, there was no mistaking an IST game when you turned on the TV. The raging red, bright blue, the giant trophy logo…you knew what you were staring at even if it burned the retinas. Anything that sets the tournament off from other games is a smart move by the league. Maybe they’ll tone down the cartoonish courts a bit in the future, but we hope not too much. Have some fun for once.
Players were competitive.
Maybe it was the $500K for each player and coach that won the IST title that helped motivate guys to play hard, but these players are competitors. It is built into their DNA. So, when there are bragging rights on the line, things ramp up. Add in hard cold cash and it’s another notch. Teams, for the most part, treated this like it was important and players responded. That’s really what fans want to see anyway.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
