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NBA In-Season Tournament: Will we see banners raised for the winners? – The Athletic
NBA
LAS VEGAS — Two of the last four NBA champions are playing for the first-ever In-Season Tournament title. The other two have a combined zero NBA championships between them.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s first In-Season Tournament has reached its final stages, with the Indiana Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks, New Orleans Pelicans and Los Angeles Lakers descending upon Las Vegas for — each of them hopes — two games, two wins and a whole bunch of spoils to go with those victories.
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“I think you’ll see a banner of some sort,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “This is not an insignificant thing at all. … This being the first one is extra special.”
The Lakers, who are tied with the Boston Celtics for the most NBA championships (17), last won the Larry O’Brien Trophy in 2020. The Bucks have just two titles, but their last was in 2021. The Pacers and Pelicans, meanwhile, haven’t won anything.
The Pacers and Bucks play at 5 p.m. ET (2 p.m. local time) on Thursday in one semifinal, with the Lakers and Pelicans in the other at 9 p.m. ET. The two winners play at 8:30 p.m. ET Saturday night.
At stake is the awarding of the NBA Cup — the trophy that goes to the tournament’s winner — as well as $500,000 per player to the winning team. Players earn $200,000 by reaching the finals, and the players on all four teams left in the tournament have already won $150,000 per man by making it this far.
Players on two-way contracts earn half of what the 15 players on guaranteed contracts on each team receive for advancing in the tournament.
And then, there are the bragging rights of having won something no one else in the 76-year history of the NBA has ever won before.
“I don’t know if this counts on your resume, if you get a banner, get a ring? I hear you get some money if you win, but as I told you guys (Tuesday night), before I get back to Milwaukee I’ll probably spend at the casino downstairs in our hotel,” said Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, who turned 29 on Wednesday. “It would be great to see another banner, and it’s gonna be great because whoever wins this whole thing is going to have one up on Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Kobe and Shaq.
“So, I guess I’m better than them,” Giannis joked, not putting his team ahead of the Pacers or the two Western finalists just yet.
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Silver’s long-held goal of an In-Season Tournament, which he freely says he stole from European soccer’s model, was done to drum up more interest in a sport where casual fans take a peek on Christmas and then largely stay away until after the Super Bowl.
That mission was, apparently, easily accomplished. Viewership of the Lakers-Suns quarterfinal game Tuesday night was up 89 percent over the same window last season — when there was nothing at stake other than your average December game in a six-month regular season — according to the NBA’s PR team.
The league’s players have clearly bought in. It’s evident by what they said and how they’ve played — when advancement is on the line, the games have been, almost to a fault, competitive and often close. But their personal motivations vary. They may be chasing cash, or, even, a banner, and their personal goals can be impacted by what they have or haven’t accomplished yet in June — when the NBA Finals are played.
“I think at this point in my career, because I haven’t done anything yet, I’ll take a banner, but certainly ‘Bron (LeBron James) would not answer the same way,” Pacers All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton said.
James, a four-time NBA champion, said “that’s up to the league” when asked, but that’s not quite right. Teams can celebrate however they choose. For instance, the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA’s Summer League event, also held in Las Vegas, last July and bought their players rings.
“I hope we throw a really good party,” the Pelicans’ C.J. McCollum said. “A banner, I guess? I don’t know, that’s a great question I haven’t really thought about.”
“I wouldn’t expect a banner,” Bucks star Damian Lillard said. “I’ll just take that money.”
Haliburton, 23, agreed to a five-year, $260 million contract extension last summer. As he mentioned Wednesday, he doesn’t personally need the prize money. “Probably treat my teammates to something nice. That’s definitely the goal,” Haliburton said was his plan.
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Beyond that, Haliburton said, the NBA has bought into the tournament not because of the prize money, but because of the chance to win something that didn’t exist before. He, for one, has never even been to the NBA playoffs.
“I look at this as, the motivation is to win,” he said. “We play in the best league in the world with a bunch of the greatest competitors in the world. I don’t know if people really care what the prize is, to be honest with you. We just want to win because you want to say that you did and others didn’t. I think that that matters.”
Myles Turner, a veteran Pacers center who’s been to the playoffs, said he’d use the prize money for his real estate investment portfolio in Texas.
McCollum, a playoff veteran and president of the players’ union, said his prize money would go toward investments and to charity. Lillard said he knew some people in need he could help.
“Christmas is coming up, so some gifts for the kids, wife,” Lakers star Anthony Davis said. “I think it plays a part. … You always want that top prize. It played a factor in a lot of the games so far, even trying to get to the (final) four. … I think the added incentive of the $500,000 has only boosted the competition.”
The Pelicans reached the playoffs two years ago and were in the Play-In Tournament last season. And yet, New Orleans star Brandon Ingram said, the In-Season Tournament has brought out an added level of focus and dedication among teammates that he said he wasn’t used to seeing.
“I think my motivating factor is just seeing my teammates really get ready for these games like this — it’s a different approach,” Ingram said. “You see some of my teammates who don’t get extra shots (after practices) locked in an exercise center at the shootaround. This is just like a different deal. I know how bad they want it.”
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“I see how excited our teammates are about that prize money, but, you know, (also) to be able to win something this early in the season,” Pelicans star Zion Williamson added. “I think that’s really been the driving force for us is motivation obviously for $500,000, but to be known as a winner.”
Pelicans coach Willie Green said the In-Season Tournament would be “added to” already established metrics to measure the success of a player’s career, or the long-term success of a franchise, thrown into the mix with NBA titles, All-Star appearances and All-NBA awards.
Asked if he’d like to see a banner hung in New Orleans should his team win the In-Season Tournament on Saturday night, Green didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely.”
Tyrese Haliburton’s star turn may be the best thing about the NBA In-Season Tournament
(Photo: Dylan Buell / Getty Images)
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Joe Vardon is a senior NBA writer for The Athletic, based in Cleveland. Follow Joe on Twitter @joevardon
