The NBA Played It Safe for Its Play-in Tournament
Justin Verrier: After years of campaigning for
soccer-inspired wrinkles to the league’s current format, Adam Silver will finally get his play-in tournament—well, maybe. The NBA will reportedly add an extra series between the ninth- and eighth-place teams in each conference, but only if those two teams are within at least four games of each other. That seems unlikely in the East, where the Wizards, a team that’s so far averaged about four wins
a month, are currently 5.5 games back of the Magic. And even with the West sending four more teams because of its deep bench of fringe playoff contenders, the Grizzlies will restart with a 3.5-game lead.
If a team manages to crack the four-game barrier, they would then need to win two games, while the 8-seed needs just one. That means the maximum number of play-in games we’ll get is four—though given the state of the East, I think we can say it’s realistically two. That’s a far cry from the
formats circulating in league discussions as recently as last week, which ranged from reseeding the playoff teams without factoring in conference affiliation to a full-blown reimagining of the first round as a World Cup–style pool play.
The 2018 de facto play-in game between the Nuggets and Timberwolves provided some of the most thrilling regular-season action in recent history, and another like it will probably do the same, barring that it doesn’t include the Magic’s ball-control offense. But we could’ve had so much more! Instead, the NBA prioritized the results of the first six months of the season. It’s a reminder that no matter how progressive Silver may be, he still answers to 30 conservative-ass owners.