There have been rumblings the past couple of years about the NBA adding a potential midseason tournament, which garnered some mixed responses from fans similar to when the Play-In Tournament was announced. However, the 2023-24 season will be the first year the league will actually be following through with the In-Season Tournament, they recently announced.
The tournament begins on Friday, Nov. 3 running up to Saturday, Dec. 9, with that being the championship game. It is also worth noting that the Semifinals and Championship will be played at a neutral site at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. There will be Group Play and Knockout Rounds for this tournament and the groups for each conference were announced at NBA Con during Las Vegas Summer League.
The Los Angeles Lakers were placed in Group A of the Western Conference, which features the Memphis Grizzlies, Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers. Newest Laker, Gabe Vincent appeared on The Old Man & the Three Podcast with JJ Reddick and Tommy Alter and shared his initial thoughts on the tournament:
“In terms of the In-Season Tournament, it does not make the most sense to me, candidly speaking. Being the ‘best league in the world,’ in terms of basketball, it didn’t make sense to me to copy what other leagues were doing. But, what do I know? I’m just a player. As far as the bonuses too, I know they tried to make it make sense for guys to want to play and compete, which is great. The bonuses will be awesome, especially if my team wins it, I’m looking forward to that.”
Yes, the In-Season Tournament is a similar structure to the World Cup, which is what Vincent was referring to as copying other leagues. The winning team will receive $500,000 per player while the second-place team will receive $200,000 each. The losing teams in the Semifinals get $100,000 each and players on the losing team of Quarterfinals receive $50,000 each.
It’ll be interesting to see how players will feel about this leading up to and during the tournament. Perhaps players will come around to the idea, like the Play-In Tournament. Will money always be the ultimate prize? Will the money be enough to incentivize players to participate? Time will tell.
This In-Season Tournament does count towards each team’s regular season record and the winner and loser of the Championship will play one extra game on top of their 82 games. Vincent went on to mention that he’d rather have an NBA championship and it is to be assumed that the rest of the Lakers team and front office share that same belief.
Lakers placed in Western Conference Group A for NBA’s first In-Season Tournament
For a more in-depth breakdown of the structure and functionality of the In-Season Tournament, check out our post which includes all of the groups.
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