The inaugural tournament will tip off Nov. 3 and culminate with the championship on Dec. 9.

I'm surprised the NBL scrapped the Cup idea with teams winning prize money. I thought it was a good idea they used during that covid season.

What the NBL should do for their in-season tournament is have 2 geographical groups. Dates, stadium is the tricky part but with our 28 game regular season play another extra 8 games on top of our 28 game season to a 36 game season so then the home and away games will be even for every team. Just take out the quarterfinals, semis and championship game like what the NBA is doing. Dates, stadium availability in Australia is a big killer for this idea.

South group:
Adelaide 36ers
Melbourne United
Perth Wildcats
S.E. Melbourne Phoenix
Tasmania JackJumpers

North group:
Brisbane Bullets
Cairns Taipans
Illawarra Hawks
New Zealand Breakers
Sydney Kings

"Poor choice of dates as it does nothing to rectify the lull from post-Christmas into January through to the All-Star Game."

For fans in the US, Christmas onwards is when their rating typically pick up. The NFL and college football is over for most teams and fans start focussing on NBA. The first two months of the season is when they get little engagement.

Yeah you can't really say poor choice of dates when the data literally backs up their decision to do it when they have.

I can say that - I'm not naive but as always it's all about the money.

Going back to my point and from a competitive perspective/perfect world it is disappointing as the two month period mentioned will continue to suck as players go through the motions.

Of course it's about the money - without the money there is no league. All sport and business function like this.

The issue with players going through the motions is the amount of games being played.
Every NBA coach complains about the lack of practice time and the huge workload on the players - which is why they’re rested so much.

Reduce the workload - quality of play would increase as the games have more meaning.
But that hits the bottom line - so won’t happen in all likelihood.

Of course it's about the money - without the money there is no league. All sport and business function like this.

The issue with players going through the motions is the amount of games being played.
Every NBA coach complains about the lack of practice time and the huge workload on the players - which is why they’re rested so much.

Reduce the workload - quality of play would increase as the games have more meaning.
But that hits the bottom line - so won’t happen in all likelihood.

Dates aren't the best. I still don’t get why the NBL scrapped their midseason tournament.

They only ever had 1 and it was only as an insurance policy against COVID interrupting the season. Doubt we will ever see it back.

Well seeing what the NBA is doing I could easily see the NBL taking their idea with groups of South, North groups.

Hopefully when the NBL expands they bring in two teams at the same time like when Dragons, Slingers entered the league in 2006. Then they can have two groups of six not an uneven number of teams then the league will need to figure out another idea.