The NBA introduced the play-in tournament during the 2020 Orlando bubble, which made the eighth-, ninth- and 10th-place teams in the Western Conference face off for the last spot in the playoffs.
The ninth-place team played the 10th-place team, and whoever won played the eighth-place team to earn the eighth seed in the playoffs. So even if a team finished eighth at the end of the regular season, keeping that spot wasn’t guaranteed.
For last season, the NBA revamped the format to include the seventh-place team. That team faced the eighth-place team to see which team would be seeded seventh.
If the seventh-place team lost, it played the 9-10 winner for the eighth seed. A loss eliminated the seventh-place team from competing in the playoffs.
The Los Angeles Lakers ended up as the seventh seed last season when injuries occurred to stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis and other notable players.
Los Angeles played the eighth-place Golden State Warriors, a team that also dealt with several injuries, for the seventh seed and won thanks to a game-winning 3-pointer by James.
Though the Lakers avoided the complications of the tournament, team owner Jeanie Buss detailed why she doesn’t like the format in an interview with Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic:
I obviously see the excitement of it. If we would have lost two games, we wouldn’t have been in the playoffs at all. And that’s, that’s a tough pill to swallow. When you’ve been in the top eight for the entire season. You never dropped out of the playoff position. But yet, you know, you can lose two games, and that’s what happened to Golden State, they were at the eighth spot, and then they ended up losing to us and then to Memphis and they didn’t make it in the playoffs. I could see where it’s kind of fun for one game, but I don’t want to diminish what happens in the regular season.
They like to say that it combats tanking and I think tanking would be best served by losing draft picks, something that hurts the basketball department as opposed to a financial punishment, right? Because the general manager’s job is based on wins and losses. The general manager’s job isn’t based on how many season tickets you sell, or how many sponsors.
The NBA approved the play-in tournament to continue for another season, so even though it can be a polarizing topic in the NBA spectrum, there’s a different element the games give to those teams vying to qualify for a playoff spot.
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