schepp and trach 2

The NBA in-season tournament is polarizing in terms of gameplay and visual appeal. The courts and jerseys are unappealing and need improvement. However, the tournament has raised the stakes for teams and players who haven't had a chance at the playoffs. The prize money is not significant for the players. The Pacers are a surprise team in the tournament, but their defense is lacking. Load management was a concern, but the tournament aims to give teams something to play for and enhance the fan experience. The Pacers' first matchup is against the Celtics. The Pistons were mistakenly predicted to be in the tournament. The Pistons have a poor record despite having young talent. Killian Hayes has low basketball skills but manages to get assists. Michael Porter Jr. had an impressive game with 30 points and 5 assists. Overall, the NBA in-season tournament needs improvements in courts and incentives for players. What an interesting time to be an NBA fan, the first year of the inaugural NBA in-season tournament. Steven Shepner, along with my co-host Joey Trachomalitz, we love to hear it, we're going to talk about the NBA in-season tournament a little bit, give you our thoughts, give you our opinions, stuff like that. So, Trach, I'm going to start with you, what do you think of the in-season tournament? Very polarizing in terms of gameplay versus the visual appeal. I think it's a very common theme now that everybody's seeing is they tried to do a little bit too much with the courts and the jerseys, they tried to be too different, I think. So that's definitely, I think that's playing into the factor of what's making it tough to watch. I think the biggest impact and the biggest benefit that the in-season tournament has had is definitely raising the stakes, I guess, for teams and players that necessarily haven't had a chance or a shot at the playoffs or playing for anything super meaningful just yet. Yeah, I agree with you, the courts specifically, I remember watching the first game to tip off the NBA in-season tournament pass pacers and it was just hard to watch, like the court was visually unappealing, it was grainy on the eyes, it hurt and it was stressful on the eyes trying to pay attention to that game. I think they did a nice job marketing the tournament, for sure, but it's still, there's a lot of kinks that need to work out, let's just say it that way, there's a lot of kinks that need to work out and to me, they really have to figure out what this really means for the players and how to get the players more excited than just the chance of $50,000 to $500,000, because we talk about it a lot, NBA money, $50,000 to $500,000 sounds like a lot, but it's not at all. That's a couple hundred bucks in the average person's pocket, if that. Yeah, if that, yeah, I mean, they make so much money anyway to where that, yeah, I mean I don't think it really matters. Even outside of their contracts, brand deals, endorsements, everything, just tally it all up it's millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, I want to talk about, you're a Pacers fan, so I want to talk about them for a little bit, the surprise team. They are. It's a really fun team. In the NBA in-season tournament. They score a lot of points, but they play no defense, yeah, so I want to hear your thoughts and your expectations for the in-season tournament. So going into the actual in-season tournament, I didn't expect much of anything from them, and then they came out of nowhere, Tyrese Halliburton's having his breakout year, leading the league in assists, he's playing like a top five point guard right now this year, in my personal opinion. I don't know if that's a hot take to anybody else or not. No, I don't think it is. I do not think that is a hot take. He's shooting 50-40-90 right now, he is, I think he's top ten in three-point percentage in guards, he's going crazy right now, so I think for him, and he said it in an interview after one of the games, it's different, it's a new experience, it's something all of the young guys, because they're a very young team with a couple of veteran pieces, a lot of them haven't played in anything meaningful. So for the Pacers specifically and other teams like them, this means a lot to wear a team like the Celtics or the Cavs even, who have consistent playoff experience, it doesn't really matter much to any of them, because they've all been there, seen things like that before. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a fun time, I think, for the players and stuff, but from a fan perspective, it does not entice me to watch the NBA even more. Especially with, like you mentioned, a lot of the courts, jerseys too, which is hard to look at. Watching that same Pacers-Cavs game too, and it's, even being a Pacers fan, wanting that team to win that's on that court, that's representing that court, it's like, you can do better than that. Yeah, for sure. And I, we talked about, a little before this, in our failed attempt to get the audio to sound right, so I'm sorry Professor Sackett if this audio sounds terrible, it's just what we're working with, it's the only thing we had to get it going, so that's just what we're working with. Right. So, how, if you're a player, how, you brought up the possible, like, experience that this could bring for playing for something, but they made this tournament to stop load management, and then made a rule about load management. Would these star players have really cared enough to play in this tournament if they didn't make that load management rule, and they just did this as an incentive to play? I don't know. It's, I mean, we kind of talked about this before, and just how the NBA is a professional sports league, it's a competitive league, you're there to play to win, and I think their goal of this tournament was assuming teams that are normal powerhouses, like the Nuggets, Bucks, Celtics, teams like that, they have their star power, Clippers especially, like, honing in on the Clippers specifically, they have a lot of star power that doesn't like to play a lot, so maybe giving them something during the regular season to play for would try to convince them to play, so if fans go to the games, they don't get upset that their favorite player's not there. So I think that was also their biggest goal of, like, getting players to stop at the load management, the fan experience. Yeah, and that's so crucial, because we see all these signs about, like... Like, my first game, I traveled from the NBA in that country. Like, and then one of them sits out, and that's, it's just gotta be heartbreaking, but like... Right, especially for young kids, too. Yeah. Who do travel from out of country. Yeah, but it's also like, like, I feel like a lot of the times, you kind of know. Like, I know you buy these tickets so far in advance, and you can't control, but like, if, like, let's say, I remember the LeBron one, when they went to Memphis specifically and he sat. When you saw he was injured a week before the game, why didn't you try to sell the tickets and go another time? Like, I know that's hard to do, and you've already taken off work as a parent and done all that, but... And it's hard to tell your kid, hey, we can't go to this game, but like, at least try. Like... I think that's a big difference between, like, minor injuries that are just kind of nagging along versus this load management mindset. Yeah. I think any little, like, sprained, lower, not really important sprained ankle, but like, sprained ankles, they're no joke. No, they're not. Basketball is one of those sports. Yeah. It's the toughest thing to do is sprain ankle. But, like, one that you've been, you've been dealing with for almost a month now, and it hasn't gotten any better, what are, like, what are you doing to not play? But back to the in-season tournament, you got the teams, this starts on Monday. Yep. So, your first matchup to kick it off, Pacers play the Celtics, but you do play at home, so I'm going to get to see that horrendous court one more time. True. One more time before they get blown out by probably 50-plus again. No, the Celtics have been an awesome team, but the Pacers just, I mean, 127 points per game giving up 125 per game to the opposition. I wonder what that number would be like if they didn't give up that crazy 50-point blowout to the Celtics. Because that, I feel like, skews it for sure. It skews it definitely, but I feel like it's close to the same. It definitely tells the story. Like, if you watch a Pacers game, that's the story of every game. Yeah. Any team can score at will against the Pacers, but the Pacers, for some reason, can score at will against any team, and it doesn't make any sense to me. It totally is to watch. But, I mean, you got other teams, like, like the Pelicans, the Kings in here, the Kings making a playoff last year, the Pelicans not so much. The Knicks making it, the Bucks making it, and then the Suns and the Lakers, who everyone expected those last four teams to be playoff teams. Really, seven, or six out of the eight are expected, were expected to be playoff teams. You can really count the Pelicans if everyone was healthy. The odd one out here is the Pacers, and I don't know, you know that, that dog on TikTok with the basketball hoop trash cans, and the balloon, and they throw it, yeah. So, originally, they had, I don't remember everything else, but I know they had the Celtics, the Bucks, the Lakers, and the Suns, correct. The person that was supposed to come out of group, or the team that was supposed to come out of group A, which the Pacers hit, they guessed the Pistons. Really? Like, the ball landed in the Pistons thing. That's hilarious. So, as we all know right now, the Pistons are 2-15, so they are historically one of the worst NBA teams to ever grace an NBA floor. Which is weird, because they have a lot of really good young talent on that team. A lot of young talent, but they don't, I mean, Killian Hayes being a starter, Kevin Knox, the second being a starter, Kevin Knox hasn't actually played valuable minutes in a league in four years. Yeah, he shouldn't be on that team. So, and Killian Hayes is one of the most incompetent basketball players I think I've watched. However, I will bet his assist total almost every game, because it seems to hit almost every game. It usually does. So, last year it got up to 6.5, this year I think it's hovering around 4.5, but it's... Speaking of assists, I know you saw Michael Porter Jr. Five assists last night. I texted our buddy, Joe Leonard, he has five assists, but he also has 30 points. A well-rounded player. 30 points. That's crazy. Five assists from Michael Porter Jr. is one of the craziest stat lines I think I've ever seen from him. It's up there with the Tony Arnold stat lines. I want to ask you, we talked about the courts, what else do you think they need to do to improve on this in-season tournament? I don't know what else they can really do outside of the scheduling. I think that, again, we discussed this earlier, it's weird. It's a weird dynamic, because you'll see a team play back-to-back games, and on a Thursday it's a regular season game, and on Friday they're playing back-to-backs, but for some reason the Friday game is an in-season tournament. Yeah, and I think it would be, like this is cool that now, the rest of the way, on Monday for these teams, it's the in-season tournament play, so that's cool, but I think it should be a blockade set, like five games in a row, or four games in a row that they play, and then they're into the in-season tournament, and it should be a month long, or almost a month long with games, and that's how it works, and then it's just done. No need to drag it from what started early November, and now it's going to end December 9th. Like, to me, there's no reason for that. Or, put it right before the All-Star break. Yeah, you could market that as part of your All-Star break. You could. The tournament finals is like right before the All-Star game. Yeah, and then the teams that just aren't there, their All-Star break starts early, which then also fix load management issues, because if your team is not in it, you're a week early, you're getting a break a week early, plus the... But, I mean, I guess to counteract that, people go, oh, they lost the in-season tournament, they get an extra week off compared to everyone else, so... But, it's an interesting concept that I really think they could expand on. It's just going to be tough. It'll be interesting to see where the rest of this one goes. I feel like they got people off of it, for sure. Like, the group stage was definitely going to be the toughest part to see how that played out. I can't deal with those courts, man. I just keep going back to... And, like, I'm a Cavs fan. I'm one of the few teams that has a good court design, I feel like. But, like, I keep going back to that Pacers design, and the light blue, and the yellow. It would be the worst one. It's so hard. I think the Bulls did bad. The Heat bad, too. No, I'm sorry, the Heat, not the Bulls. That's what I was thinking of. It's just a terrible mix, all together, to me, of court design. Some of the jerseys are terrible. And that jersey is awful, as well. I think the Cavs have, again, a nicer one than the jerseys, too. They have a good deal. But, it's... It's a tough, tough thing to look at. I think if they just, like... They should just put the in-season tournament... I like the in-season tournament on the free throw line. I think that's cool. The championship? Mm-hmm. But they should have just put that on the court. I know one of the ideas that we were floating around, kind of, between me and a couple of my friends, was maybe just color the paint in. Like, if you want to make it... Like, do a somewhat normal color for the whole court. Like, it doesn't have to be a normal NBA court. You can get your, like, your navy blue in, your gray courts, your darker reds. But then, for the paint, if you want to have a crazy design, go ahead and put it in there. And my biggest thing, too, especially with the Pacers court, why the light blue and the yellow? I know on the City Edition jerseys, the last couple of years, they've been a little light blue and yellow. But why are these just navy and gold? That's their colors. And then, if you do a navy court with, like, white markers for, like, half-court, free throw line, three-point line, stuff like that, it's a lot easier and better to look at. And then, that way, you can put your crazy yellow color in the paint. Yeah. If you do a navy court with yellow paint, it beats out whatever navy or light blue and yellow streak down the middle. And we talked about this earlier as well. Imagine the guys that work to set up the court. They have the home court, the City Edition court, the in-season tournament court. And then, a lot of these arenas have hockey or indoor football underneath them or lacrosse or something. And it's just tough. Like, it's got to be tough on them because if they play a back-to-back and one day it's an in-season tournament, the next it's not, it's very interesting. Like, I'd hate my job. I might quit. Imagine if the Buffalo Braves were still a team and they have Savers games, they have Buffalo Bandits games, they hold concerts, and then you have two courts to switch between every other day. Yeah. I'm going to just keep basing off Cleveland examples. The Cavs go from the Lake Erie Monsters to the Cavs to the Cleveland Gladiators that also play there every now and then. And then concerts and media day stuff and fan events and all this other stuff that they have to get ready for. It's just, like, that's got to be straining. I know that's their job. They sign up for it. But it is not easy. Like, I played at an AU tournament when I was younger at Spire Institute in Geneva, and they have one of the Cavs' old courts, old wooden courts raised up on a platform that teams can play on. And when they take that apart and set it back up, it's not quick. It is not a quick task. Like, it is a very strenuous task, in my opinion. So it's interesting. Final thoughts, though. Who do you think is going to win this in-season tournament? I don't know. I want to go. I feel like somebody in the West. I don't know who. I feel like the Knicks are too bipolar. The Bucs haven't been on the hottest streak. I'm not saying they're playing poorly, but their last couple in-season tournament games have been a little bit rough. They've won some, they've dropped some. Pacers, obviously, are not going to make it out of the first round. So out of the East, I would say maybe Celtics. West? I couldn't tell you. I don't know. I'm going to go Celtics. They've been playing the highest level of basketball. I'm going to take Celtics, Lakers, and the Inaugural in-season tournament. What kind of poetic justice that would be. I'm going to go to the Lakers, get one over on the Celtics, LeBron James, winning the Inaugural. Is there an MVP for this tournament? Probably. They give out MVPs for everything now. Yeah, that is true. That is true. I want to thank everyone for listening for our thoughts on the NBA in-season tournament track. Thank you for joining me. Maybe we can get back up here soon. I mean, I'm on the radio every Wednesday, so I'm up in this room a lot. Tune into the Hoop Scoop, Professor Sackett, whenever you want, Wednesdays, 8 to 9.30-ish range. So anytime you want to hop on, that would be fun. But thank you guys for listening.