- Mavs owner
Mark Cuban said the play-in tournament to determine the 7th and 8th seeds is a mistake. - The Mavs are currently in 7th place and on track to play in the tournament.
- The play-in tournament allows for more teams to play more meaningful games late in the season.
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The play-in tournament will determine the final two spots in the playoffs in each conference. The 7th and 8th seeds will play each other first, with the winner clinching the 7th seed. The loser of the 7-8 matchup would then play the winner between the 9th and 10th seeds to determine the final playoff spot.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who was part of the board of governors to unanimously approve the play-in tournament before the start of the season, told ESPN's Tim MacMahon that, in retrospect, the idea was an "enormous mistake."
"The worst part of this approach is that it doubles the stress of the compressed schedule," Cuban told ESPN. "Rather than playing for a playoff spot and being able to rest players as the standings become clearer, teams have to approach every game as a playoff game to either get into or stay in the top 6 since the consequences, as Luka said, are enormous. So players are playing more games and more minutes in fewer days."
Cuban's comments come after Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic said he didn't see the point of the play-in tournament.
"I don't understand the idea of a play-in," Doncic said. "You play 72 games to get into the playoffs, then maybe you lose two in a row, and you're out of the playoffs. So I don't see the point of that."
The Mavs currently trail the Portland Trail Blazers for the 6th seed by 1.5 games. The Blazers own the tiebreaker because they beat the Mavs twice in three games this season.
Cuban's Mavs have been hit hard by the COVID-19 protocols, losing 118 total player days, according to data from FanSure. After starting the season 8-13, they have since gone 21-9, as they have gotten healthier and rounded into form.
Had the Mavs had better luck early in the season, they might comfortably be a top-six seed that isn't worried about having to survive the play-in tournament to make the first round of the playoffs.
"I get why the NBA is doing it," Cuban said.
He added: "In hindsight, it was an enormous mistake."
The play-in tournament is accomplishing what it intended to do.
The must-win nature of the games that Cuban referenced is the purpose of the play-in tournament. As ESPN's Zach Lowe wrote back in 2018, when the play-in tournament was an idea gaining traction within the league:
"That is the broader hope behind any play-in proposal: that more teams toward the bottom of the standings would try until the end. It also would deter some selective tanking for playoff positioning above the play-in level; no team would tank from sixth to seventh to lock in a more favorable playoff matchup if doing so slotted them into a high-variance tournament. Even tanking from fifth to sixth could be risky until the very last day of the season if the standings are close enough.
"Backers also envision the tournament as a way of sparking interest during what can be a dead period of the NBA season - March and April."
As John Hollinger, a former Memphis Grizzlies executive, recently wrote in The Athletic, the last stretch of the NBA regular-season "stinks" because lottery teams tank to improve their playoff odds. Meanwhile, secure playoff teams rest their best players for the postseason.
That the Mavericks, a solid 29-24, have to fight for their lives for the sixth seed by playing Doncic more minutes is not bad for the overall NBA product. Neither is the fact that the 11th-place New Orleans Pelicans have surged in the standings and are just one game behind the Golden State Warriors for 10th place and now have an incentive to keep chasing wins to make the tournament.
The play-in tournament has created meaningful late-season games for more teams.
Cuban's injury fears are valid but perhaps misplaced
When NBA owners approved the play-in tournament, they knew it would happen in a compressed, 72-game schedule, coming off the shortest offseason in NBA history. That the league is cramming 72 games into a sixth-month period has not caught teams by surprise.That's not to say there aren't injury and wear-and-tear concerns. Many teams have noted that travel is harder this year because of COVID-19 protocols, and daily testing for players has created less time for rest.
According to the NBA, they are averaging 3.6 games per week this season, up from 3.4 last season. Since the All-Star break, that number has risen to 3.75 games per week.
After Denver Nuggets star Jamal Murray on Tuesday was ruled out for the season with a torn ACL - a devastating blow to the Nuggets' championship hopes - Pelicans guard Josh Hart tweeted, "Too many players getting hurt with this shortened season ... need to not do this one again."
Indeed, there have been some injuries to high-profile players, though some of them have been incidental. LeBron James has been out with an ankle sprain that occurred when a player fell into his leg. Rookie of the Year favorite LaMelo Ball has been out with a wrist injury that he suffered on a fall during a game.
Several stars have missed time with concerning soft-tissue injuries, including Anthony Davis, James Harden, and Kevin Durant. Paul George is playing through a toe injury that likely requires surgery or an extended period off to fully heal.
According to Jeff Stotts of the injury analysis website In Street Clothes, four players have torn their ACLs this season, already up from the average of around three per season. Stotts told The New York Times' Marc Stein that he is concerned there will be more soft tissue injuries in April.
But these concerns have more to do with playing 72 games in a shorter window - something the league and players decided to do with an eye on maximizing revenue by playing the Christmas Day slate of games - than the play-in tournament. The NBA owners approving a semi-gimmicky three-game tournament at the end of the season to encourage teams to try harder for longer is not solely responsible for the risk of injury. If teams playing their best players more minutes in more games creates an elevated injury risk, the league needs to reassess its entire schedule.