It negotiates dry between the NBA, the owners and the players for the establishment of a mid-season tournament, perhaps as early as 2023. The idea, pushed for many years by Adam Silver, aims to energize the very long regular season, by creating stakes well before the arrival of the playoffs.
It remains to avoid making something artificial out of it, by offering something concrete for the winner.
Three years ago, Mark Cuban was also extremely critical of this project. For the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, offering draft picks to franchises or financial bonuses to players had no interest.
“So stupid. What will the teams who pay the luxury tax do? Make a cross on the tournament not to recover the choice of Draft? And the teams that want to free up payroll? Are they going to be forced to trade it? Or take a player and leave him abroad for a few years? “ he threw. “Creating financial bonuses for playing matches sends so many bad signals. Recruitment during free agency will change. “Hey, we can’t play for the title, but we’re going to give it our all for the mid-season tournament, so sign with us and you could make yourself an extra million dollars.” And imagine if the tournament winner doesn’t make the playoffs. It’s like when MLB wanted to add suspense to its All-Star Game by using it to determine home-court advantage (during the World Series). It functioned ? (No) I would find it hard to hate the idea of a mid-season tournament more. I hope there is a patent on this idea”.
Interviewed by Marc Stein on his position in relation to this tournament which seems very close to making its appearance, the loud-mouthed billionaire seems to have watered down his wine. He explains that his statements were “old” and that he is now “open” to the idea. By tying it to an expansion of the Draft.
Mark Cuban’s idea would be to create two new Draft rounds, and to give the first choices of these third and fourth rounds to the team that wins the mid-season tournament.
This would not disrupt the current Draft (especially as Mark Cuban adds that these Draft picks could not be exchanged) as he fears, but the question is whether such a reward (drafting the 61st then the 91st pick) would really push teams to fight to win the tournament…
