NBA to Revisit Midseason Tournament Talks

The NBA is constantly evolving in hopes of attracting a larger audience. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA is eager to revisit the idea of adding a midseason tournament to the regular season slate.

Wojnarowski provided an update as the 2021 NBA Playoffs got underway.

The NBA is eager to restart the conversation with its teams and the players’ association about adding a midseason tournament to the league’s calendar, sources told ESPN.

The report from Wojnarowski explained that the NBA and NBPA must come to an agreement on terms for the tournament.

The NBA would need an agreement with the National Basketball Players Association and a two-thirds majority of its 30 teams to incorporate an in-season tournament plan. The league could start exploring the idea again with teams and the NBPA as soon as this year, sources said. It is too late for the league to consider the idea for the 2021-22 season.

In regards to tournament structure, Wojnarowski touched on previous proposals for the competition.

Original midseason tournament proposals centered around a European soccer model event that would tie into the NBA’s traditional schedule. The league had discussed an eight-team single-elimination tournament that would be incentivized with $1 million per player payouts to the winning team, sources said. The NBA had discussed a scenario of pool play embedded into the regular-season schedule to determine those teams advancing into the single-elimination tournament.

You can read the full report from Wojnarowski at ESPN.