 What's the word y'all? The end season tournament is now in its knockout phase. We get Lakers versus Suns. We get Kings versus Pelicans, Bucks versus Knicks, Pacers versus Celtics. I gotta admit I've loved every single second of the end season tournament. Not every single aspect of it There's still a lot of courts that I don't mess around with but for the most part the end season tournament for me has been a success I think the NBA is gonna determine whether it's a success or not based on ratings and things like that And I can't give you the behind the scenes of that because I don't know it But just from a fans perspective the end season tournament has been dope going into last night's the last day of the end season tournament group stage The only two teams we knew that had advanced to the knockout phase was the Lakers and the Pelicans all six of the other spots Was up for grabs and it was very confusing to figure it out But it was worth it in my opinion the moment the end season turning was announced I was like hey This is a good idea because at the end of the day we just want more people engaged in basketball earlier When you have a season of 80 plus games It's gonna be hard to get a casual fan to care about it in November and December I know plenty of people in my personal life that really start watching NBA every season and I'll start break because in their opinion That's when the season starts There is no stakes leading up to that point and the end season tournament is a way to add some stakes into it now Everybody values things differently, right? I'm sure there are some of y'all that are watching this that didn't enjoy the end season tournament You don't see real stakes involved and that is completely okay All that matters is that the players the coaches and everybody involved on the court see that there are stakes involved And we saw that last night because we have moments like this where the Bulls are down my 30 plus points in the fourth quarter and Joe Missoula and the bosses Celtes decide to intentionally foul Andre Drummond and you see coach Billy D is looking at Joe Missoula like yo What's going Joe Missoula has his face that he always looks confused He know what he's doing and in this case He's saying hey going into tonight the bosses Celtes need two different things to happen for them to advance and one of those things They could control which is winning by 23 or more points against the Bulls now I want you to see that score and everything you can do the math It's it's over 23, but they just wanted to make sure that they got as much wiggle room as they could Billy Donovan obviously didn't like that and He shouldn't he shouldn't care or we shouldn't care that Billy Donovan doesn't like that They talk yada yada yada Drummond does drumming things He missed two free throws and eventually the bosses Celtes won by a zillion points And as you saw they're advancing to the next stage and everybody has an opinion about this right Everybody has the opinions Billy Donovan the right Joe Missoula in the right at the end of the day I've been a guy that's always said the unwritten rules and not just basketball But sports in general majority of them are just bad Billy if you don't want this to happen How about we don't be down back a zillion points now I just said him second standing up for his guy and drumming who he mentioned or after that He was embarrassed for drumming yada yada yada But whatever but the end of the day these unwritten rules about things that you should have shouldn't do I've always found a little bit weird But it also showed us the true colors of the Boston Celtics because leading into this game Jason Tatum Jason Tatum said this the point differential thing I'm not the biggest fan of it last Friday Where the game was already over and the guys were still trying to score You know it's all about respecting the game and respecting your opponent Then we get to yesterday when it matters the point differential matters Jason Tatum and Joe Missoula They're like hey forget about everything I said because even Joe Missoula has said the day before that he's not even thinking about the end season tournament I don't know about that I saw Jason Tatum in a game with six seconds six minutes ago when you are about 30, you know and I'm again I'm not complaining. I'm okay with these type of things because it adds another element to the regular season We saw earlier where where what Tatum is referring to where teams were up by 10 Instead of dribbling the ball out they try to make it up by 12 because the point differential means so much Another example of this was the Knicks getting their wild card spot They went against the Charlotte Hornets last night And you can see they got this spot because they had the same record as the Magic the Nets and the Cavs But their point differential was 13 above the Cavaliers This might just be a normal game for time But though but if you look at the fourth quarter of their game against the Hornets yesterday at the four-minute mark around the five-minute mark Rogier Brandon Miller Hey, word Mark Williams and Miles Bridges all get subbed out for the reserves. I don't know Yorkside Boy Randall Brunter. He had a 20-20 game shot to Julie's Randall They stayed into the game until the very last I'm sorry until the last minute But they were there because they wanted to secure that they were winning by a ton of points and they did now It's not all perfect, right? There are some things that I would personally change about it and we'll talk about that in a second But for it to be the first one of hopefully many I think it went as good as you could have imagined like even one of the last games of the day the nasty Televised game on TNT we saw Warriors versus King and I think for the Kings to make it They just had to lose by less than 11 points or win the game outright But the game felt like a playoff atmosphere now You could say that's because the Warriors and the Kings have played each other 11 times in the last six months Look that up. That is that is a true number They played each other 11 times in the last six months given their their playoffs and then early in this season They played each other a bunch too. Maybe it was just that they now have built the rivalry But also the Kings went out for it, you know and the NBA is continuing to do different things like on the Dallas Mavericks broadcast they had Dirk Dirk he was there on the Miami. He broadcast. He has Shaquille O'Neal So like they're just incorporating small things here there to get again the casual fan more involved and again I will remind people this is just the first year of things the prize pool as of right now It's half a million dollars to every player that wins But if this continues to be successful and they sell it which is their goal in a year That prize pool can be more money or they might shift the price pool every time I film at this time of day The Sun is like rotating We got to get the content off All right, I've also on the Kenny Beecham podcast said that hey if the money is not enough and I feel like based on what we saw Yesterday the money is enough, but if they determined that the money was enough There wasn't good enough incentive for the players to care then we can maybe change it to say like hey You went into the tournament guaranteed a playoff spot and I guaranteed a home court And I guarantee anything but at least a place a plate in spot and that gives people the incentive to try every single night Or you can pick to add a lottery pick Not the odds it gets you the first overall pick, but let's say you get a matter of fact It's probably better. I'll show you right now There are 14 teams that are in the lottery But under the new thing if we were to change the prize pool you make it 15 teams in the lottery and let's say The bosses Celtics end up winning it right There's a team that will normally have a 30th pick because they're really good But now they have the 15th highest odds and even if we say that the 15th highest odds is a I don't know Let's say one percent chance. It's still a one percent chance or no less than one But it's a zero point two percent chance Which is better than the zero point zero percent chance that you have if you're the boss of Celtics Or if you're a team that I don't know it's already in here is I'm looking at it Every team that made the plan this year as of right now projects to be a playoff team But hypothetically let's say the Utah Jazz had got found their way into the knockout stage and eventually went on to win The end season tournament now their six percent chance of winning the first overall pick is now a seven percent chance because they have Another one on the back end again Just spitballing ideas at the end of the day the NBA is gonna tweet things here or there to figure out What exactly works best the one thing personally I would change is the amount of teams that go into the group stage now I don't want it to turn into the NBA playoffs or more than half of the teams more than two thirds of the teams Is have a chance, but I do like the idea of a knockout states to the knockout stage Does that make sense? Here's one idea that we just add an extra team So it is a 10-man bracket instead of an eight-man bracket where two wild the top two wild card teams are playing against each other to Fight against the one seed Logistically, I don't know how any of this works because you're adding an extra game to discourage you in whatever, but I like the NBA loves revenue Don't it so extra ball is extra ball. You trying to tell me you want to see devil book will go against Did you know the devil could play play against Anthony average and want to go home game Cass versus nicks are ready to hit they think in the playoffs last year So like boom play that game to go to the next stage and then we get to where we are today The other idea is a 12-man bracket, which is probably harder to explain to people because it's almost half of the league But again adds more knockout game. I'm not gonna build the diagram But the 12 games we will see that the magic get a knockout game as well And then the Rockets are the other team that advanced so like I don't know the more teams the better until we get to a Certain point. I think 12 would have to be the max But I think 10 makes a lot of sense to and like a nerdy cool thing about the incident tournament so far is that TNT and ESPN Are integrating their personalities for the n-season tournaments in my finals on Thursday So it's gonna have Charles Barkley Kenny to Jess Smith's Shaquille O'Neal with Stephen a Smith and Michael will ball Like that is our Ernie Johnson. I skip over your name my father. You know, you're my favorite That is like insane coverage. These are like some of the best personalities in the game potentially working together like These are competitors at the end of the day, but the n-season turn is bringing us all together and well I can't say us. I'm not a part of this but like next year The NBA come a phone, you know, I'm here for it. Again, I feel like the n-season tournament is like a Lost none experiment, you know, I don't think anybody lost any interest I don't think it had negative value to the NBA viewing experience for the first time And I think that at the end of the day, that's a plus don't like the courts But it got people talking don't like the jerseys, but it got people talking and the ball that was played was good Let me know what you think about the n-season tournament so far Has it has it been a double L as always I'll be in the comment section