NBA maintains play-in tournament until 2021-22 season

The NBA play-in play-in tournament is here to stay, for at least one more season.

On Friday, the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association reached an agreement to extend the play-in tournament until next season, according to ESPN. The NBA board of governors is expected to approve the decision in August.

The NBA first set up the play-in tournament last summer when the 2019-20 season resumed after a four-month hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament remained in place for the 2020-21 season, including the # 7-10 seed in each conference.

The innovative format has drawn criticism from several of the league’s top players, including LeBron James, who said that the creator of the tournament “must be fired” in May. After finishing the regular season seventh in the Western Conference, the James Lakers entered this year’s play-in tournament, beating the Warriors to remain the seventh seed after the playoffs.

League officials hoped the play-in tournament would discourage teams from tanking, as it increased the odds of qualifying for the playoffs by incorporating more teams. The format was also seen as a potential mechanism to retain fan engagement, especially among lower performing teams.

Fans seemed to welcome the format with enthusiasm; the Lakers-Warriors role-playing game May 19 grabbed 5.62 million viewers, at the time becoming the most-watched NBA game on ESPN since 2019.

On the flip side, when the Warriors lost in their second play-in game to the Grizzlies, the NBA lost one of their biggest draws to former MVP Stephen Curry. Under the previous playoff format, Curry and the Warriors would have stayed on the field as an eighth seed.