The NBA is looking to crack down on load management, and they’ve come up with a couple of ways to try and do that.
They just established a new policy preventing teams from resting multiple stars, and they also added the in-season tournament.
The tournament will count for the regular-season record, and teams will get to travel to Las Vegas to play the final stages, all while getting a huge financial bonus if they win it.
With that in mind, former NBA champion Kendrick Perkins believes the league could double down on these kinds of incentives to spice things up a little bit in the Play-In Tournament.
In his latest appearance on ESPN’s NBA Today, Perkins proposed the creation of a Play-In Tournament MVP that would grant the winner an automatic All-NBA selection, to which the rest of the panelists agreed (via ClutchPoints).
"If this goes well this season, maybe you could start adding a little bit to it next season. Maybe you add an MVP to the play-in tournament and that MVP automatically gets an All-NBA selection."
– Kendrick Perkins 😮pic.twitter.com/gXStfZ0GAb
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) September 15, 2023
There’s no denying that this is an interesting idea, and it could definitely lead to some epic performances in the Play-In Tournament.
Then again, teams that get stuck in the Play-In don’t usually have players who are deserving of All-NBA selections, with some minor exceptions, of course.
Moreover, handing out an All-NBA selection over a two or three-game tournament might not be fair to the rest of the league, and it could leave the door open for some unlikely players.
It’s an interesting thought, there’s no doubt about that, but it could have some serious financial repercussions in contract extensions, so the league might not want to take a look at it.
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