The Official 2023-24 Season Talk Thread

[DrJones]

Quote: Originally Posted by bhurst99

I don't really care that the players may not have interest in a mid-season tournament. I think the fans would have a lot of interest in a mid-season tournament something like pitting all the Canadian teams against each other for a Canadian winner. (and all the US teams against each other in the US. I admit less interest in that). I just think with so many teams and future expansion, teams need more than just one thing to complete for like European soccer. We're just 11 games into the season and the season is pretty much already a wash for Calgary Flames (San Jose isn't even trying). Just my opinion.

I'd be embarrassed if the Canucks won that. Talk about a participation trophy.

Even putting aside the history and the opportunity to play teams in different tiers/leagues, all Euro Cups offer the winner something. There are real financial rewards involved, and real reasons for fans to want their club to win aside from just the hardware.

If you win the Carabao Cup, you get a spot in the Europa Conference League.
If you win the FA Cup or Copa del Rey, you get a spot in the Europa League.
If you win the Europa League, you get a spot in the Champions League, etc.

What does the NBA Mid-Season Tournament offer? A few extra bucks for the players and a weekend in Vegas? Who cares?

If the NBA (or NHL) wants anyone to care about crap like this, there need to be stakes. If the winner of a mid-season tournament received something like one or more of the following:

a.) a guaranteed playoff spot
b.) if you end up qualifying for the playoffs anyway, all your 1st round games are at home
c.) the lottery odds of the last-place team (ie, if Vegas won the tournament, they'd be treated as the 32nd best team for the 2024 draft and have the best draft odds)
d.) an extra 5M in cap space for the following season

...then hell yeah, I'd watch, and so would everyone else. If you're fans of a no-hoper like Calgary or Columbus, you're thirsting for something like this. But if nothing's on the line but a cheap hunk of metal, hard pass.

[Majingir]

Quote: Originally Posted by DrJones

I'd be embarrassed if the Canucks won that. Talk about a participation trophy. Even putting aside the history and the opportunity to play teams in different tiers/leagues, all Euro Cups offer the winner something. There are real financial rewards involved, and real reasons for fans to want their club to win aside from just the hardware. If you win the Carabao Cup, you get a spot in the Europa Championship League. If you win the FA Cup or Copa del Rey, you get a spot in the Europa League. If you win the Europa League, you get a spot in the Champions League, etc. What does the NBA Mid-Season Tournament offer? A few extra bucks for the players and a weekend in Vegas? Who cares? If the NBA (or NHL) wants anyone to care about crap like this, there need to be stakes. If the winner of a mid-season tournament received something like one or more of the following: a.) a guaranteed playoff spot b.) if you end up qualifying for the playoffs anyway, all your 1st round games are at home c.) the lottery odds of the last-place team (ie, if Vegas won the tournament, they'd be treated as the 32nd best team for the 2024 draft and have the best draft odds) d.) an extra 5M in cap space for the following season ...then hell yeah, I'd watch, and so would everyone else. If you're fans of a no-hoper like Calgary or Columbus, you're thirsting for something like this. But if nothing's on the line but a cheap hunk of metal, hard pass.

For the NHL, what stakes could make it worth it for the players/team?

Extra cap space could definitely be an incentive. Maybe you get an extra 10% added to your cap for that season, runner up gets extra 5%?

Could make that trade deadline more interesting for the team because now you can take on more salary and make a bigger playoff push.

Players obviously get a bonus in money out of it too, and their team being able to spend more that year means their chances to win a cup goes up and they might have basically "won" a new teammate.

Maybe add a draft pick after the rounds (like how the MLB has the compensatory round) where the winner gets pick 33 (so round 2 starts at 34), runner up gets pick 67 (round 3 starts at 68), 3rd place gets a pick after round 3, 4th place gets pick after round 4? Those picks are tradeable too. Winning cap space and basically a late 1st pick, you're guaranteed to be adding a top 2 line guy via trade.

[bhurst99]

Quote: Originally Posted by DrJones

I'd be embarrassed if the Canucks won that. Talk about a participation trophy. Even putting aside the history and the opportunity to play teams in different tiers/leagues, all Euro Cups offer the winner something. There are real financial rewards involved, and real reasons for fans to want their club to win aside from just the hardware. If you win the Carabao Cup, you get a spot in the Europa Championship League. If you win the FA Cup or Copa del Rey, you get a spot in the Europa League. If you win the Europa League, you get a spot in the Champions League, etc. What does the NBA Mid-Season Tournament offer? A few extra bucks for the players and a weekend in Vegas? Who cares? If the NBA (or NHL) wants anyone to care about crap like this, there need to be stakes. If the winner of a mid-season tournament received something like one or more of the following: a.) a guaranteed playoff spot b.) if you end up qualifying for the playoffs anyway, all your 1st round games are at home c.) the lottery odds of the last-place team (ie, if Vegas won the tournament, they'd be treated as the 32nd best team for the 2024 draft and have the best draft odds) d.) an extra 5M in cap space for the following season ...then hell yeah, I'd watch, and so would everyone else. If you're fans of a no-hoper like Calgary or Columbus, you're thirsting for something like this. But if nothing's on the line but a cheap hunk of metal, hard pass.

Sure. I'm all for adding more incentives to a mid-season tournament. That's why I'm interested in the NBA mid-season tournament and to see how it evolves. Who knows maybe people will hate it and the league will kill it off. Maybe next year, they'll add team incentives for the winners.

What I don't want as a NHL fan is to have another season like last year where the top eight teams in the East were locked in by early January and they played the final 40 games for seeding. (We all know how meaningless that is in the NHL). That's a hard pass. Give us more to get invested in.

[DrJones]

Quote: Originally Posted by bhurst99

What I don't want as a NHL fan is to have another season like last year where the top eight teams in the East were locked in by early January and they played the final 40 games for seeding. (We all know how meaningless that is in the NHL). That's a hard pass. Give us more to get invested in.

If there were no stakes involved, how would that change how the fans of those bad Eastern teams feel? "Well, we were out of the playoffs by Christmas, but at least we won the John Ziegler Memorial Trophy in February!" The "winners" would be meme'd into oblivion. It could even have a detrimental effect; I can easily imagine the GM of a struggling team using a mid-season trophy as a rationalization to stay pat.

Like I said earlier, the stakes need to be big. If a playoff spot is on the line and San Jose somehow wins the tournament, the West is in chaos for the rest of the regular season. Not only does that reduce the number of playoff spots available from 8 to 7, there's now a huge incentive to get the top seed and face the Sharks.

[pietasterp]

Quote: Originally Posted by DrJones

If there were no stakes involved, how would that change how the fans of those bad Eastern teams feel? "Well, we were out of the playoffs by Christmas, but at least we won the John Ziegler Memorial Trophy in February!" The "winners" would be meme'd into oblivion. It could even have a detrimental effect; I can easily imagine the GM of a struggling team using a mid-season trophy as a rationalization to stay pat. Like I said earlier, the stakes need to be big. If a playoff spot is on the line and San Jose somehow wins the tournament, the West is in chaos for the rest of the regular season. Not only does that reduce the number of playoff spots available from 8 to 7, there's now a huge incentive to get the top seed and face the Sharks.

I could get behind this idea.

I think the NBA's mid-season tournament idea is moronic, and I frankly didn't even know they had already played games for it. I have no idea how it works, how it's structured, when it's played, or anything else, and I'm not going to spend 1 second of my time figuring any of it out.

Sports only matter if there are some meaningful stakes involved. Otherwise, it's simply an exhibition.

[DrJones]

Quote: Originally Posted by pietasterp

I could get behind this idea. I think the NBA's mid-season tournament idea is moronic, and I frankly didn't even know they had already played games for it. I have no idea how it works, how it's structured, when it's played, or anything else, and I'm not going to spend 1 second of my time figuring any of it out. Sports only matter if there are some meaningful stakes involved. Otherwise, it's simply an exhibition.

The NBA's "midseason" tournament ends on Dec. 9, at which point most teams will have played about 20 games. It's a feeble attempt to generate fake excitement (and revenue) at a time of the year in which nobody gives a **** about the NBA, ie from Opening Night to Christmas Day.

[pietasterp]

Quote: Originally Posted by DrJones

The NBA's "midseason" tournament ends on Dec. 9, at which point most teams will have played about 20 games. It's a feeble attempt to generate fake excitement (and revenue) at a time of the year in which nobody gives a **** about the NBA, ie from Opening Night to Christmas Day.

It's amazing to me how little about their own sport / potential fans these sports leagues understand. I used to follow the NBA very closely, even during some extremely dark days for my team of choice when we were regularly fielding lineups full of guys that you wouldn't recognize if they were wearing their game jerseys and a nametag. But as of the last decade or so, if the NBA were playing a game in my backyard, I wouldn't even open up my blinds to watch.

I think baseball, of all the sports not named 'football', has actually started to do some 'self scouting' and made some pretty positive changes. I don't agree with all of them, but at a minimum they seem to be trying to understand the viewer base and adjust. There's an argument for how successfully they're doing so, but it's more than I see from any other league.

I don't pretend to know how to nudge hockey in the right direction (other than maybe not allowing the Red Wings to go down 5-0 to the Rangers in the 2nd period...), but I don't think an in-season tournament with no stakes is the answer.

[DrJones]

Quote: Originally Posted by pietasterp

It's amazing to me how little about their own sport / potential fans these sports leagues understand. I used to follow the NBA very closely, even during some extremely dark days for my team of choice when we were regularly fielding lineups full of guys that you wouldn't recognize if they were wearing their game jerseys and a nametag. But as of the last decade or so, if the NBA were playing a game in my backyard, I wouldn't even open up my blinds to watch. I think baseball, of all the sports not named 'football', has actually started to do some 'self scouting' and made some pretty positive changes. I don't agree with all of them, but at a minimum they seem to be trying to understand the viewer base and adjust. There's an argument for how successfully they're doing so, but it's more than I see from any other league. I don't pretend to know how to nudge hockey in the right direction (other than maybe not allowing the Red Wings to go down 5-0 to the Rangers in the 2nd period...), but I don't think an in-season tournament with no stakes is the answer.

TBH I think the NHL has done a reasonable job over the last few years in addressing my on-ice concerns. (Off-ice is a different matter.) Yes, the loser point still bugs me (no, I don't want a 3-2-1 system either), but there's a much better balance between scoring and defence/goaltending than there has been in the past. There's relative parity. The situation that bhurst99 brought up (there was a clear gap between the top 8 teams in the East and everyone else) is a one-off IMO. I remember the 2018 MLB season was disgustingly chalk (teams were pretty much locked into their playoff spots well before the All-Star break, and the playoffs featured few surprises or memorable games), but that's just going to happen sometimes. You can't guarantee that there will be exciting playoff races each season.

As far as the NBA goes, there are problems, but surprisingly parity isn't one of them at the moment. Most of the American stars are either ancient, injury-prone, or both. Seriously, which US-born players 30 or under qualify as superstars? Maybe Tatum and Booker? Old farts like LeBron, Steph, KD, etc. can't afford to waste their energy on playing 70+ games. Kawhi and AD are made of glass. Ja and Zion are undisciplined losers. The NBA complains about "load management", then increases the playoff field to 20 teams, which further incentivizes stars to sit. The only way to make the NBA season more meaningful is to either reduce the number of regular season games or reduce the number of playoff teams, but that would cost $$$. Thus we get dumb stuff like a consequence-free "Mid-Season Tournament" (sounds like an EA executive came up with it; that's not a compliment!)

My main problem with the NBA is the excruciating foul/timeout/replay/TV timeout sequence at the end of close games. Make me NBA Commissioner, and the 1st rule changes I'd institute would apply to the final 2 minutes of every 4th quarter and OT:

- Each team has only 1 timeout to use, regardless of how many they've used beforehand
- No TV timeouts
- Replays are handled by a remote HQ in New York; decisions must be relayed in 30 seconds, or the call on the court stands
- Once your team is in the bonus, all fouls are 2 (or 3) and the ball

(Of course, as soon as I've made those changes for the betterment of the game, I'd promptly be fired for the resulting loss in ad revenue.)