kekgeek1 wrote:Ya I know they want to add that mid season tournament. I just don't know how they get players to try in that.
I'd like to see that happen. Here are some ways they could consider to get the players to buy in.
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[*] Shorten the regular season. As I understand it, they'd have to pay off the regional networks that have stood in the way for the games they'll miss on contracts already signed. But after buying those games out, they can stop teams from signing new contracts that promise more games than the new limited schedule would allow. Game ticket prices would probably go up somewhat, but I don't think they'll really lose a lot of TV licensing value, and the mid-season tourney would actually probably bring in more revenue to the league as a whole, which could be further distributed to the teams and players. The game's just getting too popular for the league not to keep making money hand over fist. They don't need 82 games to keep doing that. They should cut enough games that even the team that lasts the longest in the mid-season tournament would not play more than 82 games before the end-of-season playoffs begin.
[*] Give cash awards to the top-finishing teams in the mid-season tournament.
[*] Reform the draft lottery to include all 30 teams and actually award teams slightly BETTER lottery odds than they'd otherwise get for finishing at the top of the mid-season tournament and maybe also the end-of-season playoffs. The odds should still be progressive based on regular-season games to promote parity overall, but a little lottery odds boost would be a nice incentive in the mid-season tournament and playoffs (at least for the fans). Time to reward teams a little bit for doing WELL when it really counts, even though the regular season standings should still carry the most weight to keep the league balanced.
[*] Keep scheduling games in a way that limits travel time for these teams. They've done it more lately and it makes sense to reduce travel for the teams, which would probably boost their willingness to do a tournament-type of thing. If you play against a team on the road once, might as well play them again in the next couple of nights before moving on.
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And while they're at it . . .
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[*] To fight tanking during the regular season, pick a random date every year before the season starts that falls sometime between 50%-80% of the way through the regular season schedule and DON'T publicly announce it until after 80% of the games have been played. Then the base draft lottery odds will be based on the standings on THAT date. Because it will be unknown, teams will be disincentivized from blatantly tanking and there will be basically NO benefit to tanking during the last 20% of the season, which will make the playoff race even more interesting because there will be fewer pushover games.
[*] Keep the play-in tournament at the end of the season. It's awesome.
[*] Adopt ELAM endings in the mid-season tournament and the G-League. Then when everybody realizes how much better that is, they'll soon be clamoring for that in all games!
[*] Honestly, consider scrapping the All-Star Game or at least incorporating elements of it into the mid-season tournament to boost revenue. It's basically a joke at this point.
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