The popularity and success of the NBA’s play-in tournament could lead to a midseason tournament.
According to ESPN, the league is planning to speak to teams and the players’ association about an in-season tournament that was discussed before the COVID-19 pandemic, but never was voted on.
At least one star isn’t fan of it, though. Injured Nuggets guard Jamal Murray tweeted: “Plz @nba stop with all these tournament talks. No need to make season complex.”
The NBA has tried to be more creative to add interest to the season. It has added the aforementioned play-in, given coaches challenges and created new wrinkles to the All-Star Game like a player draft and scoring targets. The NBA would need approval from the players’ association and two-thirds of the 30 teams to implement the new tournament.
Nuggets guard Jamal Murray doesn’t like the idea of the NBA having a midseason tournament. Getty ImagesPreviously, the plan was to imitate the European soccer model in which the tournament would be tied into the regular-season schedule, ESPN reported. One idea was pool play that would be included in the regular season schedule to determine an eight-team, single-elimination tournament in which the winning team would receive $1 million player payouts.



