It's sad because a little franchise I know called THE HOUSTON ROCKETS loved and respected the IST and their fans were hell bent on the inaugural NBA CUP. But fate, a bad draw and some bad calls deprived them of their rightful place therein - a real tragedy.
boring and a waste of time, just like the week off after the all-star game wake me up when the regular season games start up again. Sick of watching these ugly basketball courts
It's odd how people are so against this. I love it, adds meaning to the first month or so of the season where most people outside of hardcore basketball fans didn't care about it. It leads right into the Christmas games and as such right into January as things start to hear up. It's perfect really. Doesn't take games away from the season so nothing to complain about.
Tainted already, no possession and yet Lebron can ask for a time-out with the ball loose and Suns two points down who could've recovered the ball and tied it up.
Make no mistake - the utter and total humiliation of the mentally corrupted IST haters is complete. Their broken Slinky brains can't rebound back to the pre IST shape and it confuses them. They are to be pitied
Screws up the scheduling Standings are too hard to follow Related: Poorly-designed tournament structure--stakes are hard to determine, games often have differing stakes for each team (can be make-or-break for one team and just a regular season game for their opponent) Nothing in it for the fans, it doesn't help their team in regards to the real playoffs in any way Just a gimmicky sideshow overall that doesn't address any of the NBA's very real problems with injuries & load management, bad officiating, overcharged scoring environment, etc. I would rather they put their time, money, and effort into making the regular season better and more meaningful. I'm generally a "less is more" guy--make the game you've got the best it can be before you go tacking on extra stuff. I already didn't like the play-in and even before the play-in I thought too many teams were allowed into the playoffs. Bruh, you're just trolling at this point
44.7%, on a high volume, is more than fine. 89% from the line, too. Dude can shoot, but is a better passer. Pacers tempo is fun to watch. I think if they get to the finals and play the Lakers, then the Lakers / Lebron would get gassed. But the Bucks will be a very tough matchup.
Overall I'd say the first IST was pretty much a success. It gave plenty of teams meaningful games that otherwise wouldn't be and plenty of games where players probably would have sat but didn't. The teams are pretty excited for the chance to go to Vegas this time of year from what I've seen and all that had the chance to played like it. Outside of NY getting throttled by the Bucks but that in itself was already a mismatch going in
it isn't pretty but he's become one of the best shooters in the league and an all nba caliber player who is now well respected all across the league. you don't change that at all and he won't
Haliburton will be one of the best (if not THE best) PGs in the league for a long time. His offense has no weakness. What remains to be seen is how he is going to perform in the playoffs under pressure situations.
I'm kidding about the surgery. Like when someone tells an ugly person to get surgery. His shot looks like Kevin Martin's or Shawn Marion's. But unlike them he gets it off effectively when someone is guarding him.
Of course i'm trolling, but man, it's a lot more amusing than reading IST hater boyz like yourself serve up used Charmin takes like like "nothing in it for the fans" in order to .... do waht exactly? Maybe too.....extrapolate your own personal sour grapes about being clownishly wrong in front of strangers on the the internet about the IST: Let's examine the receipts my friend: 1. "In-season tournament is stupid and pointless" This seems to be the exact opposite conclusion that NBA players, NBA take havers, and NBA fans have reached - the reception has largely been postiive among all constituencies. Like literally any time a player is asked about it, or an NBA commentator (Lowe, Ringer, etc) is taking on it - the reciption ranges from postiive to very positive. Here's one of lliterally dozens of articles on this. 2. "Just another way of de-valuing the regular season, which is already too low in value" This did not occur, players, fans etc all took these games very seeriously - you think the regular season would be less "devalued" if the games had regular painted courts and more players resting? Please explain, or actually please don't. It leads me to believe that you were late to catch on to the fact that they count as regular season games, a common theme among IST hater. 3. "The standings should matter more, not less." The standings matter - the exact same - as they mattered pre and post IST. Not partially the same, not almost the same - but the exact same. 4. The bulk of the time we spend watching our home teams play basketball is watching regular season games and it should mean something beyond the individual salaries of the players involved. It *did*. I didn't see you after the Denver or NOP win saying "HEY GUYS THIS DOESN"T MEAN ANYTHING" - Hell, Fred Vanvleet himself was on the Woj podcast 2 days ago saying how much he wanted to win and go to Vegas. In sum, it basically delivered all of the things you said it would not deliver. The IST tournament is not perfect, but you're just making up reasons to excuse your cynicism Eat your crow sandwich before you tell us all the ways BIG BRAIN YOU has come up with interesting ways to "fix" the tournament that you purport not to care about. LIke, I didn't think the Rockets defense could be rehabbed as quickly as it apparently has, i didn't think Sengun could go up a level, those things happened, I was wrong! look at that. I'll take it. Anyway, see you after the semis, so you can tell us how lame it is, Arbiter bromanji.
I was not listing ways to fix it, I was listing some of the reasons I don't care about it. I literally have no idea who is even in the semifinals because I'm not even paying attention. Part of the reason for that is that they did a terrible job implementing this thing and it's too much of a pain to keep track of the stakes in each game for me to be arsed. I also just thought and still think the idea was a bad one in the first place. We don't need an extra tournament. You're welcome to your opinion, but I actually, really, truly don't give a sh*t except that it messed up scheduling for regular season games and the ugly courts make me want to gouge my eyes out. I also think it has already flopped and I think you're dead wrong to believe it's been a success. The TV ratings increase hasn't been nearly enough. It's been a very small bump compared to the real playoffs, and that's for the first year. This should be a really great year for interest in the IST. I wouldn't be surprised if there is little to no bump in ratings over the regular season once the novelty wears off.
Anyone trying to really act like this first IST sucked or failed, is just flat out off. There's been an overwhelmingly number of feedback all across the league about it and it's a landslide of being in favor. There's probably going to be tweaks going forward but the overall concept without a doubt thrived and the purpose of it was achieved some of these reasons folks are whining about in this thread are utterly stupid too NBA Attracts Netflix And Other Streamers With Success Of In-Season Tournament https://www.forbes.com/sites/leonar...cess-of-in-season-tournament/?sh=7c674fdf4add The NBA's in-season tournament is a success https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/the-nbas-in-season-tournament-is-a-success/ar-AA1km6qj#:~:text=As Pacers-Hawks and Cavaliers-76ers reached their dizzying conclusions,the ones in comparable windows got last year." The NBA’s In-Season Tournament Is an Unqualified Success https://www.si.com/nba/2023/12/06/nbas-in-season-tournament-unmitigated-success
That ratings bump is just so small dude. If it sticks it will be fine, but what are the odds that future years are going to be as high as the first year? Edit: A measly ~380k extra viewers on ESPN & TNT for all that marketing they did. (So up from like 1.1 million to 1.5 million.) I'm super suspicious of the sports media crowning it a success, by the way. Of course they want it to be successful, it helps boost their ratings/clicks in turn. For perspective, the average actual playoff game averages about 5.5 million, so nearly 4x as many viewers. For me to call this a success I would want to see at least half that in the first year given the likelihood that ratings drop off in the future.
1. Create impossible standards and metrics to judge an event by. 2. Watch it fail your nonsensical metrics. 3. Claim that is evidence of failure. This way, you can never be wrong.
The IST has been a major success and it should be evident to everyone. It was done to prevent teams from resting their players but more than that it also added a lot hype to the NBA which is needed after the season start hype starts to die down. The fear coming in was players would turn their nose up at a measly 500k but I guess a bag is still a bag, nobody taking days off and everyone wants to go to Vegas.
