You could do it at the end of preseason in October. There are 30 teams in the NBA. Invite the two best teams in Europe to be a part of it to make it 32 for even brackets. Stern is trying to make the league global. Seed the NBA teams by last years reccords. I guess you put the 2 European teams as 8 seeds.

It could be don in 12 days or so. It's only 5 games for the two playing the championship. Single elimination just like college. You hand out a trophy. No, its not the NBA championship but I think after a few years the NBA guys would want to win this. College has tournaments to start the year.

What the hell? There is no down side to doing it. People would care more about this then the meaningless preseason games that they have.

Teams who get eliminated can still play each other in regular preseason games as normal.

Pass de dou chee pon da left hand side

I would say if it does not "count" as a regular season contest, you would get a lot of nobodies playing and about 5 minutes of Kobe, KG, LeBron, etc.

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You know me like that.

Agree.

I'll put that on my must see list.
right after the WNBA all star game

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“Mmmm. Move over, eggs. Bacon just got a new best friend - fudge.”

If it doesn't have the competiveness that you want who cares. I think eventually it will. But your just sacraficing pre season games anyway.

You'd have to have regional sites for the first 2 rounds. Another one for the 3rd and 4th round. That way you can play back to back games. And then the championship site. Maybe in Vegas. Put the regionals in college cities. The NBA does that anyway for pre season games.

If it doesn't work your no worse off then what the pre season is any way. Nothing. I think it would get competitive. Especially after the first round. Since they have to play it they'll want to win.

Or if you don't want to do all 30 teams you could just do last seasons 16 playoff teams. That way you could have the tourny done in a week.

Forget the Europe aspect. Just do it because it's fun and will have some interest here. At least more interest then the regular pre season. Like I said you could do it in 12 days with all teams involved. You could do it in a week if you just had the prior seasons playoff teams.

There is no down side to it. I don't know why anybody would be against it.

I don't really see what purpose it would serve. By the last week of preseason all anyone cares about is start of the season, both fans and players.
It would be like having a round robin the last week of the Cactus League. What did Bud's World Baseball Classic do for you?
It did nothing for me. Bad baseball by players who were not ready for serious competition is not entertaining.

Like when a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there to see it.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

College has tournaments to start the season. If you don't like it fine. You wouldn't watch the last pre season games either. This just adds a little spark. It's harmless and could be fun. If it is lousy no harm would be done. I think players would care and would want to win it.

I think teams are going to want to have set schedules, places, times leading up to the season. They will not want the uncertainty of where they are playing (or if) in their efforts to prepare for the season.

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You know me like that.

A better idea might be to cut off about 1/3 of the NBA regular season and introduce a sense of urgency into the games.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.