What Is the Point of the NBA In-Season Tournament: Adam Silver Explained Soccer’s Role in Establishing the NBA Cup

The NBA’s intentions with respect to starting the In-Season tournament seem to revolve around generating greater buzz and excitement for both fans and players during the regular season. Recently, Commissioner Adam Silver showed up on JJ Redick’s The Old Man and the Three podcast to talk in detail about the reasons the tournament was introduced.

Silver talked about how the tournament was started as an opportunity for NBA teams to win something before the playoffs arrived. While it is not expected to reduce the importance of the Larry O’Brien trophy, Silver claimed that it could easily be the start of a new tradition in the league.

“But here is an opportunity to win something that is very significant to the players, this NBA cup, something that’s new, something that signifies accomplishment on the floor, and a beginning of a new tradition in the league,” he said, calling the Larry O’Brien trophy the ‘apex’ of NBA basketball.

Silver went on to claim that the In-Season tournament has already generated more excitement than the NBA had expected. Rather than treating the competition as a needless extra, most teams and players appear to be excited and up for the challenge. “I think for this In-Season tournament, I love the marketing around it, I love the excitement we are seeing anecdotally,” Silver said.

The veteran executive also explained that the idea  itself was ‘stolen’ from International soccer tournaments. “We stole the idea from International soccer,” Silver admitted.

Therefore, International players were quick to understand the concept simply because they were more familiar with it. With foreign players forming as much as 1/4th of the NBA, Silver compared the concept of the In-Season tournament to that of the FA Cup for Premier League football teams in England. He claimed that the NBA was looking to build a similar kind of tradition around the In-Season as well.

NBA In-Season tournament has a prize pool of $18,000,000

In addition to trying to start off a new tradition, the NBA has also ensured that the prize pool seems worthwhile for franchises and players alike. The In-Season tournament has a total prize pool of around $18 million, which is bound to be treated as an added bonus.

The payout, as far as standard contracts on winning teams are concerned, will be as much as $500k per contract, with the finalists getting as much as $200k per contract, according to AP News. Furthermore, the NBA has also ensured the semifinalists and quarterfinalists get a part of the pool.

Teams that will lose in the semis will get $100k per player, while quarterfinalists will get $50k per player. Hence, while some fans might look at the In-Season tournament as an extra set of games that are simply not needed, the NBA seems to have left no stone unturned to make it a hit.