The inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament is set to begin today…but will any of the players actually give a damn about winning it? The short answer is hopefully(?) The long answer is probably not as much as we’d hope. And the even longer answer is that it’s probably going to matter most to the middling teams who would usually be tanking by now. The general sentiment with this event is that people would certainly be surprised if the team that wins ends up doing much else with their season in the long run.

If you already know how the tournament is set up, or if you’re happy to just wait and find out, feel free to skip this paragraph (I promise I won’t put anything too juicy in it). But, if you are interested in the setup and schedule of the tournament, here’s how it’s going to work: Each team will be put into a five-team group from their conference based on last season’s records. Then, they will play each other team in their group once, on Tuesdays and Fridays in November. Then, the best team from each group, and the team from each conference with the best record that didn’t win their group moves on to the knockout round as a wild card. Teams would then fight to advance through the quarterfinals, then to the semifinals and lastly to the championship game played in Las Vegas. Each game except the championship will count towards the regular season, and will effect league standings. Teams who make the knockout rounds will be rewarded as follows: All players from the teams who lose in the quarterfinals will be awarded $50,000, losing players from the semifinals get $100,000, losers from the championship get $200,000 and every player from the winning team will be awarded $500,000. The financial bonuses will end up totaling around 18 million dollars paid out by the league. The winning team also gets the In-Season Tournament Cup trophy. It’s all pretty standard sports-schedule jargon, the rules are really nothing to get excited about. In fact, the whole idea is being modeled off of European sports leagues that hold league cups like this every season. 

After it was once speculated that this event could come with seeding or draft implications, the only extra incentive for players to care any more than usual is a paycheck. But here’s a piece of breaking news: superstars don’t care about an extra hundred or so thousand. At least not enough to put playoff level effort in before December even rolls around. Heck, even some role players with massive contracts don’t care about the extra money. So, who will care about this in-season tournament? Well, how about teams like the Pacers? The Magic? The Rockets? The Hornets? The Pelicans? Guys who otherwise wouldn’t even sniff the Larry O’Brien trophy and could still actually use the extra couple hundred thousand. The whole idea with this tournament is to prevent these middle of the road teams from tanking their season so early, and it might actually work. Finally, the young guys we’ve all been hoping to see grow, are being pushed to compete at their best. The Cade Cunninghams and Paolo Bancheros of the league are now being asked to carry their teams through a condensed version of the playoffs, and it could pay dividends for their confidence moving forward. Not to mention there’s sure to be some pretty interesting bets available moving through the tournament. 

The truth of the matter is that NBA superstars don’t care about early season games to begin with. Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs beat the Suns in a clutch game? The Bucks get embarrassed by the Raptors? Oh well, there are still 81 more games. You certainly won’t see KD or Giannis crying about just one. But now, teams that had originally planned on just tanking are being incentivized to try a little harder for these seven games. Which in turn leaves room for more stars to crop up;fan-favorites from league pass teams that might just want to play their tails off for these couple games.

Which means that for us bettors, there’s another wrinkle for us to know before going into this tourney. Because what will likely end up being just another Tuesday night game to Lebron and AD, might be the equivalent of the NBA Finals to the Grizzlies. Of course, the Grizzlies don’t seem capable of winning anything no matter how much they care so that might not be the best example. Either way, it’s going to be interesting to watch how the In-Season Tournament grows and changes as the years go by.