MIAMI — The NBA has officially sent a proposal to teams calling for a 78-game regular season, along with an in-season tournament for all teams with a $15 million prize and a reseeding of the playoffs when the field is cut to the final four clubs.
A copy of the proposal was obtained by The Associated Press on Friday. The plan also laid at a $1 million per player prize, for the winner of in-season tournament. The winning coaching staff would split $1.5 million.
The league would make the changes for the 2021-22 season on a trial basis, with an option to continue the next season. The league’s board of governors is expected to discuss and likely decide in April whether to go forward or not with the plan.
Here is how the in-season tournament would be structured:
The proposal calls for teams to play eight divisional games in the group stage of the event, which would begin Nov. 24, 2021 and continue through Dec. 11. (The NBA said the dates are tentative.) The group stage games — four home, four away — would count toward a team’s regular-season total.
The six division winners and two wild cards would qualify for the quarterfinals on Dec. 13 and 14, 2021. Semifinals would be played as a doubleheader on Dec. 16 and the title game would be played two days later — with the semis and finals at a neutral site like Las Vegas.
The NBA said that there is the potential for “additional prizing for players on the remaining final four teams” and that other incentives for teams and fans were “to be determined.”
The notion of adding a in-season tournament has been something commissioner Adam Silver has talked about since at least 2016, drawing the parallel to how such events are customary in European soccer.
“It would need to be negotiated with the Players Association,” Silver said earlier this year. “I’ve had very general discussions with [union executive director] Michele Roberts about the notion that these are the kinds of things we’re looking at.”
ESPN and The Athletic first reported on the contents of the proposal.
The NBA told teams that a study it commissioned through a third-party company earlier this year showed that 60 percent of NBA fans want a shorter regular season, that 68 percent of fans said they are interested in an in-season tournament and 75 percent were interested in a play-in tournament to decide the playoff field.
The same study, the NBA said, found fans liked the idea of reseeding the final four playoff teams — even though that would open the door to the potential of the NBA Finals going on between two teams from the same conference.
