Speaking on his Point Forward podcast alongside Jayson Tatum and Evan Turner, Andre Iguodala had some interesting takes on the NBA In-Season tournament. The former Warriors star talked about how the MVP of the tournament will be decided on games that are played on two particular days of the week.
Advertisement
“You playing all these games, but only the games on Tuesdays and Fridays count for MVPs. So who is the MVP of Tuesdays and Fridays?” he said, as both Turner and Tatum burst into laughter. The In-Season tournament group stages games were all held on Tuesdays and Fridays, something that changed with respect to the knockouts.
Celtics’ Tatum, however, was confused by a much more basic aspect of the In-Season tournament and wanted to know which games would be counted for the MVP title. “Is that like what you do in every In-Season game, or is it just like when you get to Vegas?” Tatum wanted to know. Iguodala eventually told him that all the In-Season games would count towards the MVP race.
While Iguodala went on to praise some aspects of the tournament, including the fact that it allowed a range of exciting matchups to take place in November, he talked about how qualifying for the knockouts resulted in a disadvantage for the Regular NBA season.
“And there is something about the games you gotta play, if you make it out of your bracket, and you end up playing the top teams in the league 5 times and then the other teams are playing lesser teams at extra time and then you get to the Playoffs and that one game difference,” he said, before talking about the potential result.
“You know in the East or the West, depending on the year, it can take you from 3 to 6 with tiebreakers,” Iguodala claimed, something he expects to be improved in due time.
Hence, while Iguodala is happy with the tournament itself, he believes some aspects need to be improved. Tatum also agreed with his fellow men as he stated that they have to go to Indiana three times this year due to these tournaments, which is “too much”. That, of course, is in addition to Iguodala’s issue with the group stage games being held only on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Jayson Tatum talks about fouling Andre Drummond during In-Season game with Chicago Bulls
Tatum also briefly touched on how the Celtics initially advanced to the In-Season knockouts by defeating the Chicago Bulls. Despite being on their way to a blowout win, Tatum and Co. were in search of a higher point differential, which led to Andre Drummond, a traditionally poor free-throw shooter, being fouled repeatedly.
“It wasn’t Joe’s fault or our fault, and like, we were in the game, and I was about to tap…I don’t really want to be out here…If it was a Wednesday, I would have been on the bench, the younger guys would have been out there,” Tatum said, before claiming that he simply did not feel right.
Hence, Tatum also had a problem with some of the In-Season tournament rules, which led to situations where teams were chasing bigger leads despite being headed toward blowout wins. The Celtics were fouling Drummond despite holding a 32-point lead, something they simply had to do.
