The NBA continues to get my curmudgeon up.
What has been talked about is now an official league proposal, as our Shams Charania and others have reported: an in-season, pre-Christmas, eight-game basketball tournament involving all 30 teams, with the winning team getting $15 million to split — presumably, giving each player $1 million if you have a full roster — to help gin up interest in the regular season, where TV ratings are sagging worse than Uncle Stan’s couch after Thanksgiving. The proposal would reduce the regular-season schedule from 82 games down to 78, and have a four-team showdown in each conference between the Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10 place teams for the final two playoff spots.
These ideas have, literally, been poll-tested. The Associated Press reported the league commissioned a study this year that showed 75 percent of fans were interested in a play-in tournament for the last playoff spots, 68 percent of fans were interested in an in-season…
Let’s block ads! (Why?)
