To spice up the regular season a little, and create high-stakes matches, the league will therefore introduce its NBA Cup this season, a tournament with direct elimination matches starting from the quarter-finals.
This will begin on November 3 and will then extend until the final, scheduled for Las Vegas on December 9.
But how can you motivate players to play in a tournament with no real sporting interest, except that the matches count in the season rankings, in a closed league like the NBA? On Adam Silver’s side, the answer is in the wallet since each player on the winning team will walk away with a bonus of $500,000!
“It’s something that will allow young teams to be competitive, especially at the start of the year”explains Tyrese Haliburton to Yahoo! Sports. “Young teams and teams that are supposed to be less good, over 82 games, at the end of the year, they don’t make the playoffs. Whereas with the mid-season tournament, everyone has the opportunity to win. If you are hot from the start of the competition, you really have a chance.”
But if money is enough to motivate players, the leader of the Pacers has an interesting idea to do it even more. A purely sporting idea…
“I think the best incentive for everyone would be an automatic playoff spot. If it was a playoff spot (for the winner), I think everyone would take it very, very seriously, right? Especially the older teams. But it could be that… what would then [l’équipe gagnante] ? »
In the process, Tyrese Haliburton seems to realize the technical difficulties that such a gift would cause.
“I don’t know how we could do it, it’s really complicated. At the end of the year, if the older team won, they might say, ‘We’re not playing for real. We’re the eighth seed, we don’t care, we’re in the playoffs’. This would be the only negative effect. But I like the fact that they’re experimenting with things. And then, who knows what it will look like in five years? » he concludes.
