Last season, the NBA introduced the In-Season Tournament, in which the four semi-finalists traveled to Las Vegas to vie for the first-ever NBA Cup. The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Indiana Pacers to win the inaugural IST, and the championship game was not counted in the 2023-24 regular-season team standings.
Every player on the Lakers team received a $500,000 cash incentive for winning the tournament, while players on the Pacers received $200,000 each. But while the teams enjoyed their trip to Sin City, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr thinks that playing deep in the IST actually hurt both teams when they returned to the real world.
"The travel for the final four teams, it's a lot. I like what the league has done...But I think the down side is the extra game," Kerr said. "The extra travel seemed to hurt both of the Lakers and Pacers last year."
The Lakers and Pacers struggled after the IST
It's hard to think that one extra game and a pair of flights to Las Vegas could actually hurt L.A. and Indiana. However, the two teams faced a hangover after the IST and even suffered injuries, which are likely coincidental but could be interpreted otherwise.
After winning the In-Season Tournament, the Purple and Gold played six out of their next seven games on the road, going 2-5 during that stretch. L.A. then went 3-7 in their next ten contests played to fall to 19-21 on January 13th. Although Bron and AD stayed healthy after the IST, the rest of the team didn't. Cam Reddish only played 13 games after January, Christian Wood 7, and Jarred Vanderbilt 1.
Meanwhile, the Pacers were on the road in their first four games after the IST Finals and went 2-6 in their first eight contests after Las Vegas. They, however, won nine out of their next ten matchups to improve to 23-15 on January 12th. However, Haliburton missed ten total games due to injury. After averaging 20+ points per contest from October to December, Hali slowed down and never averaged more than 18.9 points per night in any month after January 2024.
Related: Julius Erving believes no player is similar to him in the modern NBA: “I was a small forward, but I really played like a power forward”
Kerr wants the NBA to lessen games
In the end, the Pacers and Lakers played only one extra game during the regular season than the rest of the league's teams. However, Steve said that if the NBA wants to improve its product, the best way to do it would be to reduce games so players could practice more and deliver better performances every night.
"I do like the idea of it, I think the league has been very progressive the last few years with play-in tournament and the in-season," added Kerr. "I am all for experimentation. I'm also for a 75-game season, but they're never going to do that. But what I worry about is, the way we play our season now, we basically have a game every other day. While it's good that you are not having the players do too many back-to-backs, you hardly get any practice time, and I think the quality of play suffers."
It's unlikely that the NBA will heed Kerr's issues with the IST. But those could be the least of his worries, as the Warriors are in a very tough Group C in the 2024 In-Season tournament and may not make it to Vegas.
Related: "We hang one banner, and one banner only - and that's NBA titles" - Old Kobe Bryant video resurfaces after Lakers announce that they will hang a banner for the IST title
Local News
Comments / 0