NBA owners again discussed in-season tournament, but it’s 2023-24 at earliest

The NBA Board of Governors (the owners, essentially) — following the lead of the league’s competition committee — made two smart moves when they met this week:

They put in place a tougher punishment for the “take” foul — a free throw plus the ball out of bounds — and locked in the successful play-in tournament permanently.

They also discussed NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s pet project — an in-season tournament. From Shams Charania of The Athletic.

The NBA Board of Governors today discussed In-Season Tournament concept of all 30 teams competing and then eight teams entering single-elimination round to determine the winner, with the Final Four at a neutral site, per sources. 2023-24 season at earliest.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 13, 2022

Talking to people around the league in Las Vegas, momentum is building toward this tournament happening. Eventually.

Silver wants this, and with the success of the play-in tournament expect the owners to approve this on a trial basis at some point. Like the WNBA’s Commissioner’s Cup, the idea is to use regular-season games as the “pool play” portion of the tournament, leading to the final eight in a one-and-done NCAA Tournament style set of games.

I’m skeptical the American sporting public will embrace it — mid-season cups and tournaments are not baked into the sports fan DNA here as they are in Europe or other parts of the world where soccer/football is king. However, I could be wrong and the owners are likely willing to at least give it a shot.

There are still practical questions to answer about the NBA tournament. That starts with how does a league discussing rest and recovery to keep players healthy and on the court — fewer back-to-backs, for example — add games to the