Opinion: 3 outside-the-box suggestions to improve the NBA In-Season Tournament

The Phoenix Suns play their final NBA In-Season Tournament group play game Friday at Memphis as they begin a three-game road trip.

The tournament has some intrigue.

The full color tournament courts look better in person than on television. The group play format works. So do the tiebreakers, especially the two involving points – differential and total scored.

Not so sure awarding $500,000 for each player on the tournament championship team is going to matter much to millionaires, but it’s a nice bag for two-way guys.

Still, there are ways to make the In-Season tournament more meaningful to the players and feel like a tournament.

Right now, it feels more like regular season games.

Before getting into some outside-the-box suggestions, Evan Wasch, the NBA’s head of basketball strategy and analytics, answered questions about the In-Season Tournament on Reddit last week.

The most relatable question came from Virginia Slim, who asked what alternative proposals were considered for the In-Season Tournament.

“We considered tons of different formats/options/timings over the years, some of which came from other sports competitions, and some of which were newly suggested,” wrote Wasch, who later said this has been 15 years in the making.

“That included straight knockout tournaments, spreading the Tournament out over a longer chunk of the season, having it coincide with All-Star Weekend, bringing non-NBA teams into the mix, giving draft picks / additional salary cap exceptions to the winner, etc.”

He continued by saying the NBA didn’t want the In-Season Tournament to have playoff incentives.

“Ultimately, we’re counting on our players, teams, and fans to build the tradition over time and turn this into a true championship that everyone wants to chase,” Wasch concluded.

The is coming from an outsider who wasn’t in any of league’s discussions about the tournament over the years. The league discussions increased about it over the last two years.

So, these three suggestions may sound foolish, but money and winning a tournament that technically isn’t separate from the regular season isn’t enough.

Homecourt throughout playoffs

The tournament champion should get homecourt advantage for however long it is in the playoffs regardless of the seeding – if the team makes the playoffs.

If that’s too much, the team can either keep their playoff seed or be able to move up or down a seed.

Say the Suns are a fourth seed, which usually plays the fifth seed. They might like their matchup against the third seed or sixth seed better.

They’d have the option to move up to the third or down to the sixth. If they’re the fifth seed, they could move up to the fourth seed to get homecourt advantage in the first round.

Rest without explanation

Allow the tournament champion to rest their star players up to five games the remainder of the season while the tournament runner up can do it for up to four games without having to provide a reason.

The new NBA player participation policy is designed to address load management.

However, if teams make their way to the championship game, having the ability to rest after a long road trip or following three games in four days would probably sound good. The teams would most likely save those rest days for the end of the regular season, especially if they have a playoff seed locked up.

March Madness feel

This may seem harder to pull off, but how about play the group tournament games at either the top seed of each group or better yet, at a neutral location.

Set out two weeks for the five teams to play their four games on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday to give it March Madness feel.

Three neutral West sites – Seattle, Palm Springs, Albuquerque.

Three neutral East site – Raleigh-Durham, Storrs, Conn., Lexington, Ky.

Imagine Jayson Tatum playing NBA In-Season Tournament games at Cameron Indoor Stadium where he played college ball at Duke.

Those cities would enjoy NBA basketball, make for huge hotel paydays and opportunities to some NBA Cares work in those communities.

Now, that would take away teams having 41 home games. Those neutral sites would probably have to guarantee sellout crowds and a certain amount of revenue to match what they’d make in an NBA arena.

Truth be told, not every NBA game sell outs. Have no doubt they would in a neutral setting where people care about basketball.

Have opinions about current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @DuaneRankin.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Outside-the-box suggestions for NBA In-Season Tournament