A Quick Defense of the NBA Play-In Tournament

 The NBA commentaries I follow, and the generation of basketball fans I belong to, are generally speaking not fans of the NBA play-in tournament.

But I'm also Awstralian and from the AFL heartlands, where we have a convoluted post-season system the precedes the NBA "Play-In" "Tournament" so it is easier for me to wrap my head around the novelty of the NBA play-in tournament, which is why I feel I must say something.

Now, like everything wrong or in decline with the NBA it probably stems from Lebron James. Lebronze is at this point, rapidly gaining on a consensus that he is not the greatest to ever play the game, on account of him not even being the greatest of his own era by the yardstick of accomplishment. But in a perfect storm of NBA financial interests, the interest in having the greatest-of-all-time ("goat") currently active in your sport and the interest in having deep post-seasons for the team with the largest media market (the Los Angeles Lakers) have unfortunately been combined now for like 8 years.

Commissioner Adam Silver has an interest in increasing the odds of both Lebron winning championships with the Los Angeles Lakers, and Lebron is an incredible athletic specimen by well-past-their-prime standards, and is incredibly poor value for what he is paid if we do not factor in proceeds from merchandise and just things like contributing to a winning team.

The Play-in tournament I'd even be confident exists for that purpose, it often allows a team with a losing record a chance at a post season, so the LA Lakers could fall as low as no. 10 in the Western conference and still potentially have a chance at getting eliminated in the first round of the play-offs by any of the 4 far superior teams with smaller media market share.

Defense Starts Now

But in a strange twist, this year a kind of sense emerges with having something like the Play-In in effect. Today as at writing, the Charlotte Hornets eliminated the Miami Heat from contention for a spot playing the no.1 seeded Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference play-offs. Lamelo Ball their star point guard pulled on Bam Adebayo - deluded record chaser from a few posts ago that scored 83 points to surpass Kobe's penultimate scoring mark by 2 that had stood for 20 years in a game where the Heat were up by 40 or something ridiculous against a team that is deliberately trying to lose, so I guess if you gain glory dirty maybe you lose glory dirty. There's a degree of Karma.

Now that Karma is stinking up the Hornets but the fact is, the Hornets started off stinky and then got hot, very hot, possibly the hottest team in the entire NBA for the late part of the season. These kind of developments are possible, they are precedented, teams don't just go from good to bad and bad to good in the off-season. I think Charlotte had something like a 15-26 record halfway through the season and wound up 44-38 so the second half of the season they had a 29-12 record which had they had that form for a whole season would have put them at 2nd to only the Detroit Pistons in their conference. 

Of course, while the top 4 teams of the conference have held their form an entire season, and the Hornets are weird because they 'clicked' rather than transformed due to a player coming back from injury or ownership making a major trade, it's still one of those things that can cast a pall over the eventual winner if by the end of season, there's a really good team who based on recent form are better than most of the teams the eventual champion will face in the post season but the champs are saved by their early struggles to get going.

And conversely, over in the Western conference we have another interesting situation, one that is highly precedented, and both an argument for and against the play-in tournament. 

A week ago, the Los Angeles Lakers lost their two best players to injuries in a blowout game against the no.1 Western Conference team and reigning champs the OKC Thunder. Due to these unfortunate events, that almost seem to be the hand of god daring Lebron to prove himself the goat by having no coattails for once to ride to glory, but the Lakers basically aren't a top 8, possibly not even a top 10 team. 

The have Lebron "Bronny" James Jr. whom I believe to be statistically the second worst player in NBA history after only Nat Hickey who made his debut for the Providence Steamrollers three days shy of turning 46 and only played two career games ever, scoring two points. On the other end is Lebron James all time leader in turnovers, just about completely useless on defense such that the LAL impressively got the 4th best record in the west playing a majority of minutes as 4 vs 5 defensive team and has an overall -ve +/- meaning the Lakers go backwards while he's on the floor, regardless of the stats he puts up individually.

At the 4 spot, and even as far down as the 6 spot, such a reversal in fortunes cannot be corrected by the Play-in tournament, but in principle, my defense of the Play-in tournament is that it discounts the past and appreciates the recent. In some sense, it can replace slumping teams that likely wont go the distance or provide decent competition with potentially rising teams that may go the distance. In principle.

But its not the AFL

AFL teams play once a week, 18 teams where only the top 8 get a postseason, so it's like 25 or 26 games to set the ladder in place, and the 5-8 spots play elimination finals, the 1-4 spot play preliminary finals, the winners of the elimination play the losers of the preliminaries and then it's semifinals and grand final. 7 matches in all to produce the sufficient losers to leave one champion on top.

Some teams get pretty much a fortnight of rest in the AFL postseason, but even the teams that potentially play all 4 weekends on their path to the grand final get a week of rest inbetween.

The NBA play in tournament gives those who do not have to play in it, a week of physical recovery before starting the gruelling post season. So while teams that wind up in the 9 and 10 spots have improved chances to have a postseason, the teams in the 1 and 2 spots benefit even more.

Having 8-10 play these single 'win or go home' matches may be exciting and winners in the ratings, but last year saw a bunch of teams suffer injuries because the teams are going all out to get into the post season in 1 or 2 do-or-die games. 

I believe last year or the one before the play in saw Jimmy Butler and Giannis Antentokoumpo get injured in the play-in such that their teams getting to the playoffs were almost pointless anyway. These are precisely the games were by the incentives of the NBA it makes sense for Lamelo Ball to grab the leg of Bam Adebayo and take him out after only 11 minutes on the court. 

Again, unlike the AFL the NBA doesn't really have a match review and tribunal system, where a player can face suspensions. Instead players can only be ejected from the game during the games they are playing, and if they amass enough technical fouls over a season they can face one match suspensions. This may seem light by AFL standards, but tech fouls are awarded in the NBA for bullshit like showboating or looking at someone funny, whereas the AFL has had cases of clotheslining and poleaxing and chickenwinging players all of which needs to be cracked down on.

Its only been extraordinary circumstances like "The Malice At The Palace" that saw Ron Artest setting the record for player suspension and that was for getting in a punch on with a Detroit fan who was banned for life.

The point being, just to get back on track, the Play-in tournament makes severe injuries predictable, in the exact opposite way that the Allstar game makes severe injuries unthinkable. They are effectively Game 7s for the 9-10 teams, and a game 6 and game 7 for the 7-8 teams.

The next thing being, as we are witnessing this year the Lakers without Luka Doncic and Austin Reeves are likely a worse team than all bar the Golden State Warriors of the top 10 teams. Their regular season record no longer reflects their potential for round 1 of the Post Season, after which their stars are likely to return, though they may rush them back if they do not get swept in the first round.

Teams get swept in the first round, indeed it is a big incentive of landing the 1st or 2nd seed, you are going to play a weak beaten up and unrested team under the new Play-in tournament qualifiers. The NBA playoffs are also intense, they take two months just for the post season, best of seven series. It's long and gruelling and last year franchise players in Dame Lillard, Channing Tatum and Tayshaun Prince all snapped their achilles tendons in the post season, Tayshaun while leading the OKC Thunder in game 7 of the finals series.

It happens, but if injuries happen that take multiple starters out and drastically reduce the now ubiquitous betting odds, perhaps there should be a trigger clause that says any team that loses two of it's starters to 3-4 week injuries in the close of the season should replace the highest ranked play-in team.

I don't know how that would work, it's potentially fraught. It might tempt teams to dose up an injured player on horse tranqs or something so they can clock in for a few minutes for the end of season games so as to conceal their injuries. But like it happens. It happened to Kevin Garnett I think the year Kobe's Lakers beat the Orlando Magic lead by Dwight Howard, he injured his knee and the champs just couldn't defend. Philly might have cut the turd that is Joel Embiid loose years ago given his injury proneness, with a "look don't waste our time with an uncompetitive post-season"

I mean I don't know, I think there's also decent arguments for getting rid of Play-in tournament altogether, I don't deny it. And like if OKC go on a 25-1 run to start their season, and then lose like 8 games in a month, they rallied but being able to do the work early, suffer injuries midseason, like securing a post-season on the merits of games played 5 months ago is a good incentive to take the early season seriously. The LA Clippers got off to a terrible start, no doubt prompting James Harden to bale as he always does, and now they are paying the price in the 9 spot, just like the Charlotte Hornets, they have a chance based on clawing their way up, but they were also slumping late.

I don't know, I guess they should just have a clause that forces Lebron to get across the half-line for every defensive possession before any team he's on the roster for can have a post-season. Unless he retires in which case they can go through.