It doesn’t really make sense if the whole point of the tournament is to promote tryharding early in the season. If that’s the goal, then reward the teams that are successful for all games not just in their group.
The emphasis on point differential has also led to some awkward moments where players or coaches are forced to “break the code”. While I think that will continue to happen I think putting more value regular season wins more will minimize those situations.
Looking for ways to improve upon the IST is fine and I’m fine with Chuck’s suggestion. However, whining about the integrity of the game due to this is a bunch of malarky and I’m sick and tired of players and coaches doing it (our guys included- hey there Demar). Play to the buzzer, end of story.
How was magic supposed to know what point differential to hit? The scheduling of the games gave teams playing later an unfair advantage. This tournament is wack
I like the point differential. The only games that matter should be the IST games.
I agree
It’s only the first year, people are going to take some getting used to the point differential. People are always a little resistant to some change at first. Regular season standings are at least partly influenced by a team’s Strength of Schedule, using strictly the IST games makes sense as everyone will have played the other teams in their group. We already use Regular Season standings for playoff seeding, this IST is supposed to make these single games early in the regular season mean something more. We don’t get scenarios where one single game can affect whether your team moves on or is knocked out in the NBA often, this is also why the play-in games have been so popular IMO. It’s just another little excitement factor, what with all the variance a single regular season game could have.
There should be groups of 4 with all last games at the same time.
I feel like the whole “broke the code” thing is so dumb anyways. If a team or a player wants to play to the last second, how are they the asshole? If you don’t like them continuing to try and score, give up or play defense imo.
There’s a new code in town, and it’s called “playing 48 minutes of basketball per game.”
No he wasnt
In the end, it really doesn’t matter. It’s just repackaged regular season games played on ugly floors for a trophy that nobody gives a shit about.
When the novelty of the in season tournament wears off, Silver will get rid of it, just like he got rid of the new all star game format. Who knows, maybe the Kings will raise a banner when they win the in season tournament like they did when they won the summer league title
I like it. I hope they don’t “fix” it next year just because it is new and different.
There will definitely be some changes next year, thats a guarantee
I think this can be fixed with better scheduling. If the IST had less normal games during the group stage then it would make the tournament both less confusing and make the difference between regular season record and group standings smaller
Only because I want to give credit where it’s due, I think Candace Parker came up with the idea first, and Chuck agreed.
Point differential is totally fine to use to determine the winner of a group because everybody played the same teams.
Point differential is insane to use to determine wild cards when the groups can be so wildly unbalanced. Phoenix is in over Minnesota because they played in a group with us, Memphis, and Portland, 3 bottom 4 teams in the west.
Phx lakers grizzlies jazz blazers. At the time the groups were made, this was not an easy group to come out of. It seemed pretty on par with the other groups. Things change. It’s a round robin tournament. Tough nubs all around in these things.
My team didn’t make it because of point differential so obviously point differential is stupid and bad
It’s almost like the ideas for change always benefit the team in the flair of poster. What a random coincidence that happens 99% of the time!
We do not care