After ESPN reported that the NBA had expressed enthusiasm for restarting talks about midseason tournaments, Denver Nuggets’ Jamal Murray quickly came out against the idea, as a few professional ballplayers have recently.
“Plz @nba stop with all these tournament talks,” he wrote via Twitter. “No need to make season complex.” In order for midseason tournaments to happen, an agreement would have to be reached between the league, two-thirds of the teams, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver. ESPN reporter elaborated on what exactly a midseason tournament would look like for the NBA, and the ideas the league has tossed around to potentially make one happen.
“Original midseason tournament proposals centered around a European soccer model event would tie into the NBA’s traditional schedule. The league had discussed an eight-team single-elimination tournament that would be incentivized with $1 million per player payouts to the winning team.” As nice as that sounds, Jamal Murray isn’t the only player who has protested the idea of a midseason tournament. “Hell no,” Mario Hezonja told Sean Highkin last January when asked if a midseason tournament would work with the stateside NBA. “This is the NBA. Come on. They’re trying to be like Europe? No way.”
Meanwhile, Tomas Satoransky said the idea was “interesting” and Ricky Rubio added that “changes are always good.” Despite the resistance, it will be interesting to see how this idea plays out.
