If you happened to tune in to an NBA game in November on a Tuesday or Friday night, you might have noticed that the court looked different ¡ª with every inch of wood painted, and a broad stripe running through the middle from baseline-to-baseline. The special paint jobs, as you probably figured out soon thereafter, are for the NBA¡¯s new In-Season Tournament.
The league has added a new wrinkle to its early season by dividing its 30 teams into six groups of five and having them play a tournament that will culminate with a championship in Las Vegas on Dec. 9. The group stage of the IST, as it¡¯s maybe not quite yet known, was woven into the regular season schedule in November, ending last Tuesday with the field winnowed down to eight teams that¡¯ll play in the knockout rounds this week.
Modeled after cup competitions in European football, the IST is meant to add some spice to a sometimes bland stretch of the NBA calendar. At 82 games spread across seven months, the season can be a slog for players and viewers alike. For casual fans, it¡¯s easy enough to wait until Christmas Day, when the league makes a tradition of scheduling five marquee games for national TV, to start paying attention. The mid-season tournament, in theory, gives them a reason to tune in sooner by adding what NBA Commissioner Adam Silver calls ¡± games of consequences.¡±
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