…many taking head critics will say things in 15 years like, yeah Donovan Mitchell never won the finals but his three tournament titles and MVPs have to count toward his hall of fame case.
(For the can’t think so goods, I picked Mitchell at random. Insert any all star who isn’t a mega star in his place. The point is that the tournament has the opportunity to create some meaningful moments that will later become part of a player’s lore.)
I really don’t understand any counter argument: is it Grrrr I want Nov-Dec basketball to be mostly meaningless and ignored?! If it fails, it fails. The only real failure would be if just as people are getting into it, Acuck Silver says, I had to cancel it, it was my fault, X player told me November and December are the new training camp, and so out of respect for my player papi’s, we will gladly return to being a league that is not interesting until after the Super Bowl.
While it’s a different sport, it’s analogous: Steven Gerard won the the FA Cup ( in season tournament equivalent ) but not the Premier League and is considered one of the greatest players in league history. So there’s precedent.
The FA Cup is older and quite prestigious to this day.
I know that it’s older, footballs been around longer than basketball. While not an exact match, I was just trying to name the closest thing that I could think of to an in season tournament format. I also named a player who won the in season tournament but never the main competition. I believe that if this tournament stays around, in 15 years it would absolutely be a seen as an achievement to have won it. It’s new, it will take time to grow and be fleshed out.
Okay. But the in-season Cups and tournaments in European soccer are a huge deal and have been around forever. The players and fans genuinely care about them, sometimes more than their regular league for some of the smaller clubs.
You cannot compare the Cups and tournaments over there to this random ass tournament they decided to do for whatever reason.
The players don’t even care about the in season tournament though
They can say that, but when they play competitive nature wins out
Well they want to win because it’s still the regular season
Some guy in the 70s
“The NBA adding a 3 point line will make the paper writers give a HOF award to oh let’s pick a guy like Larry Bird to create more meaningful moments compared to greater shooters in the past! Now they will say he’s the greatest shooter of all time and ruin Pistol Pete’s legacy!”
All that will matter is ratings.
If the tournament increases eyeballs on TV, even in short bursts, it will increase revenue and therefore the money paid to players will increase.
If it does nothing, or decreases rating it’ll be a failure
They should call the wins moral victories
Imagine giving a single shit about what fucking idiots on television will say about a player 15 years from now