The NBA Play In Tournament Isn’t Going Down Well. At All.
The reception of the new NBA Play In tournament goes from bad to worse with each passing week.Â
Two weeks ago, Warriors star Draymond Green said he would struggle to get motivated for the NBA Play In.
Then on Monday, Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic said he was confused about why it was introduced. As he pointed out, the consequences are massive.
“I don’t understand the idea of a play-in,” Doncic said. “You play 72 games to get into the playoffs, then maybe you lose two in a row and you’re out of the playoffs. So I don’t see the point of that.”
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He was backed up hours later by Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who highlighted the already compressed schedule.Â
“I get why the NBA is doing it,” Cuban told ESPN.Â
“But if we are going to be creative because of COVID, we should go straight up 1-20 and let the bottom 4 play in. This is the year particularly to do it since the 10 games cut [from the normal 82-game schedule] were in conference.
“The worst part of this approach is that it doubles the stress of the compressed schedule. Rather than playing for a playoff spot and being able to rest players as the standings become clearer, teams have to approach every game as a playoff game to either get into or stay in the top 6 since the consequences, as Luka said, are enormous. So players are playing more games and more minutes in fewer days.”
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“In a regular season of 82 games where we aren’t playing 30-plus games in 6 weeks, then it might have been OK,” Cuban told ESPN.
“But the compression of so many games into so few days makes this an enormous mistake. “If we had gone 1 to 16, with the top 12 in, it still would have been rough, but there would have been more separation between play-in and the top 12. This is a season where we have to rest high-usage players. We have no choice. And that can and will have consequences.”
