🕶️The play-in tournament is the future
...and Mark Cuban should stick to Luka fanfic. Plus Shawn Kemp hagiography and more
OPENING TIP
Notice anything different this NBA season?
It’s not the injuries. Or even the trades. The “dog days” of the season, that period between the All Star break and the final playoff push, are actually interesting for once!
We have the play-in tournament to thank. The NBA helpfully explains everything in one super-simple graphic:
Got that? Ok, so maybe the NBA’s presentation could use some work. The upshot is that each team seeded between 7 and 10 could make or miss the playoffs this year. Sentiment is divided over how excited we should be for this mini-showdown.
On the one hand, we have Mark Cuban, who likes this idea a lot, per ESPN:
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has suggested a plan to the NBA league office that would include… a play-in tournament to determine the final two playoff seeds, he told ESPN on Tuesday.
On the other hand, there are those who hate the idea, such as Mark Cuban:
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told ESPN that the compressed schedule combined with the pursuit of a top-six seed is a non-sequitur... "In hindsight, this approach was an enormous mistake," Cuban told ESPN.
We’ll let the reader guess why Mark has had this sudden change of heart. Surely it’s not the fact that the Mavericks are precariously perched in the 7 spot, with everything to lose and nothing to gain from being dragged into the play-in.
Cuban’s alleged beef is that the compressed schedule is already tough on players, and needing to avoid the bottom two seeds is forcing teams to play their players more minutes than is safe.
Of course, this is exactly what prospective 8 seeds have historically done to avoid missing the playoffs entirely (the Blazers last year are a good example). Also, the compressed schedule was pushed hard by all the NBA owners, as it was the only way to meet their contractual TV obligation$. Now, Cuban is talking his book as he finds his team getting pinched.
But who cares what Cuban or some other owner thinks about the play-in. What do we think about it?
In short, it should be great.
Save The Lottery was formed around the premise that the NBA was suffering from a tanking epidemic. The incentives to do so were too clear and unambiguous (despite requiring 13 page letters to explain them to the Philly ownership group). The play-in works to solve this problem beautifully.
The functional constraint to a team tanking for years and years is fan stamina (as our friend Sam ruefully discovered in his letter above, to no one’s surprise but his). The play-in tournament gives teams and fanbases more hope and expectation of sneaking into the playoffs, which makes it that much harder to sell a tank job to a fanbase. Combined with flattened lottery odds, tanking has never been more unappealing.
We’ve already seen some evidence that the play-in is having an effect on team’s thinking, with Chicago swinging for the fences by acquiring Nikola Vucevic from the Magic, even though they were mired in 10th place at the time. We are also seeing fewer teams tanking, with only the truly atrocious Magic (who have strip-mined their team) and Thunder (who needs SGA… let’s go for Point Poku!) really going for it this season. (Ed. note: we salute the Timberwolves, who are in line for a top 3 pick despite giving every appearance of trying to win now!)
Could the play-in experiment be a dud? The biggest risk is that the 9-10 seeds simply don’t cut the mustard. A few extra games just to end up right where we started could put a damper on things quickly. It could also lead to lower seeds deciding that competing for the play-in simply isn’t worth the squeeze. But it’s not like the 7th or 8th seeds have been that great historically, either:
And with apologies to Cuban, let’s recall what all four of these teams are really fighting for: the right to be cannon fodder for the top two seeds.
It’s worth remembering that this is an experiment. There has been a widespread sentiment that the play-in is here to stay, but it is technically being tested this season only. Now, baseball just implemented something similar to great acclaim and fanfare. Also, the list of concepts that add additional games and revenue to the season and were then discarded is pretty short.
So a surprising amount may be riding on a couple of Bulls-Knicks games to round out this season. If you don’t have an opinion on the play-in yet, Mark Cuban probably has one for you.
TWEET OF THE WEEK
While @Oduro92 may not be a dog person, he can still check out our breakdown for more on Rashad’s positions.
STL REMEMBERS: SHAWN KEMP
At STL, we spend a lot of time wishing that these damn kids would get off our lawn. Case in point, this dunk:
We can all agree that that is a savage dunk by LeBron James. But it is also a dunk that would be an average Thursday afternoon by the first player in our STL REMEMBERS series, in which we pay homage to some of the greats of the past. It’s absolutely shocking how few highlights were live-tweeted in the 90s and before.
Today’s entry is SHAWN KEMP.
Shawn Kemp loved to dunk on people. In fact, it might not be far off to suggest that Kemp liked to dunk more than we at STL like anything.
If the NBA’s current rules for taunting, standing over people, and hanging on the rim had been in place in the 90s, Shawn would have averaged 7 technical fouls a game.
You know that play when a guy strips the ball at half court, and has the basket all to himself to try something? The stuff players today try in that moment is tame compared to dunks Shawn Kemp was trying in the lane with two guys on him. That is because today’s players are focused and professional, but Shawn Kemp didn’t have time for that shit, because he was too busy dunking on people.
Today, STL remembers Shawn Kemp.
AT THE BUZZER
The NBA’s GM Kingmaker (The Ringer)
How washed up guys would defend Luka (ESPN)
Remembering Kobe’s final game (The Athletic, $)
Who impacts net rating the most when they’re on the court (The F5)