We Know At Least One Team Cares About The In-Season Tournament

There’s one question that is looming over the NBA’s brand new In-Season Tournament: Who is going to care about this? Essentially, it’s a brand new competition that is getting folded into the NBA regular season, so there are questions about whether or not any of the players will take this really seriously, especially because (presumably) all of their focus and attention will be on winning the NBA Finals later in the year.

Is that a fair question? Who knows! The season hasn’t even started yet, so this is all speculation at this point. But if there is one bright spot for the league, it’s that one team is apparently prepared to take the competition very seriously.

“I said to [Golden State Warriors general manager] Mike Dunleavy about a month ago, I said, ‘Hey Mike, what do you think about this in-season tournament?’” Warriors president Brandon Schneider recalled during the broadcast of the team’s preseason win over the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday. “He said, ‘Well, Draymond Green and Chris Paul told me we’re gonna win it.’ I said, ‘OK, that’s all I needed to know.’”

I have spent a solid 10 minutes going back and forth on whether or not this is a surprise. Beyond the fact that Green expressed some frustrations with the payout players will receive for the Tournament, plenty of folks wondered whether the old guard — guys specifically like Green and Paul — would care about competing for this because of how important winning the NBA Finals is for them. At the same time, Green and Paul are insane competitors who want to win everything, presumably see the value of being the first In-Season Tournament winners, and for Paul specifically, I assume he was in meetings with Adam Silver about this for years during his time as the president of the NBPA and got sold on the idea. At the very least, a nice trip to Las Vegas in December is quite the incentive.

The really good news for the league here is that if a team like the Warriors is going to care about this, that should have ripple effects. Obviously, Golden State is a draw on national television, and the league would surely love if people are tuning into the In-Season Tournament because Steph Curry and co. go on a run. And of course, if a team like the Warriors essentially validates this as a thing worth taking seriously, it’s not hard to see that having ripple effects across the league.