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In the earlier stages of the NBA’s hiatus, Spencer Dinwiddie came up with a modification for the 2020 playoffs.
Dinwiddie even heard from NBPA executive director Michelle Roberts after he shared his idea for a play-in round.
“So, basically, it was kind of like looking at March Madness, right? And the buy-in and then also our loss of revenue, right, during this time period (from) not playing roughly 18 games per team,” Dinwiddie said back in March. “One of the ways March Madness does a really good job, they invite everybody to the football stadium. You get about 100,000 people in there, which is the equivalent of five games. Right?
“So, I was thinking, how can we make that happen? Well, you can’t do that with the top seeds ’cause they earned the right to have home-court advantage. So what if you had this little play-in, tournament-style? Maybe best-of-three situation where, ya know, you get everybody in these football stadiums, you ramp up the revenue, you get everybody excited, and then when you get back to the regular playoffs, ya know, all the people that played into that round of 16, you kind of resume playoffs as usual.”
Spencer Dinwiddie says retiring NBPA executive director Michele Roberts reached out about his 28-team March Madness-style NBA playoff idea
The Nets PG also talks about getting tested for COVID-19 and why he’s watching his own highlights in exclusive FaceTime with @TaylorRooks pic.twitter.com/qQlrRtVzVX
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 17, 2020
@NBA I think we’re looking at a 28 team tournament. Top 4 seeds get a bye. Teams 27, 28, 29, 30 have the neutral site play in games March madness style in a best of 3.
Then the round of 28 is best of 5.
And then the round of 16 etc proceeds as usual! https://t.co/caaFSdxzS4 pic.twitter.com/02N0rBtbqO— Spencer Dinwiddie (@SDinwiddie_25) March 14, 2020
Well, as the NBA tries to get a plan together for the 2020 NBA season, the league is now working on a new playoff format, according to ESPN‘s Adrian Wojnarowski. The new idea: a four-team play-in tournament between the “Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10 seeds for the final two playoff spots in each conference.”
The NBA also had a play-in round in the Disney bubble. The Washington Wizards had the chance to force one, but could not. The Western Conference, however, did host a play-in matchup between the Memphis Grizzlies and Portland Trail Blazers.
While there have been discussions of a play-in tournament in the past, per Woj, nothing happened until Dinwiddie shared his idea — of course, in the middle of a strange year that’s lent itself to unconventional ideas.
With the league entertaining the idea of multiple play-in teams, Dinwiddie wants to know when he’s going to get some credit, tweeting:
I SWEAR I SHOULD GET PAID FOR THIS
I SWEAR I SHOULD GET PAID FOR THIS https://t.co/OKDvHFW6gS
— Spencer Dinwiddie (@SDinwiddie_25) November 3, 2020