In a press conference this Wednesday, April 6, Adam Silver returned to several subjects including the play-in tournament. He also mentions other “concerns” and puts his idea of a mid-season tournament back on the table. It’s not just on the court where things get hot in the NBA.
This is not new or even unique to basketball and the NBA. As important deadlines approach, many coaches rotate their workforce. Consequently, the best players rarely take part in all games during a season. Especially since in the NBA, the pace is fast, loaded, and the bodies never really have time to rest. Consequently, injuries often occur in the Great League and to try to avoid them, some are managed by pushing load-management to the rank of art. This season, Kawhi Leonard, Zion Williamson and Ben Simmons, for example, have played as many minutes as you who read these lines. Adam Silver, businessman at heart, would necessarily like to see his top players available as much as possible each season (via ESPN).
“I have a big concern, it is this tendency of the stars not to play a complete season. And I think that’s something that we, with the players’ association, have to deal with. I’m not saying that I have the miracle solution. Part of the problem are injuries. Before the pandemic, we had started to spend time on the things that we could do in terms of sharing information, resources to improve training, rehabilitation. Another way to improve player participation would be to create other incentives. […] We can think of a tournament during the season or of format changes. »
The last sentence is very interesting since it brings to the fore this famous mid-season tournament mentioned by the commissioner of the NBA for a year. A tournament that is controversial because it would add (useless?) matches to an already busy season. Especially since the All-Star Game already has this role of great basketball spectacle in February. Adam Silver may be planning a reward for the winner. For the moment, we can imagine what we want: money, draft pick, 100,000 VC on NBA2K22, everything is possible. In any case, this tournament would surely not give the players any rest. Like every year, we wonder if the regular season has too many games. Shouldn’t we go to 72, 70, 60 meetings? Of course, this would reduce TV rights. However, the risk of injury would be less and perhaps superstars would play in a greater percentage of games. A debate and a decision that can only take place between players, TV channels and NBA officials.
A new puzzle has come to Adam Silver’s mind. Organizing a new mid-season tournament, always wanting more stars, but having to navigate between everyone’s injuries. In short, the neurons must be heating up right now, especially as the good weather returns, so beware of the headache.
Text source: ESPN
