Tournament of Meaninglessness

Congratulations to the NBA on brainwashing people into caring about the in season tournament, or as I like to call it, the Tournament of Meaninglessness.  It was entirely predictable that the media would eat up this tournament and make a big deal about it.  But the truth remains that it means nothing.  I refuse to be brainwashed by the NBA.  I’ve been against this tournament from the start.  It was inspired by European soccer and American sports definitely don’t need to be more like European soccer.  There were other people who seemed to be against it also, but now everybody seems to care for some reason.  People compared it to the play-in tournament, but there’s a huge difference.  There is a purpose to the play-in tournament.  You can advance to the playoffs by winning in the play-in tournament.  But winning this tournament means absolutely nothing.

It makes me angry that the NBA has tried to make this tournament into a big deal when it means absolutely nothing.

Let us not forget that the only reason this tournament matters is that the games count as regular season games.  I’ve wanted the Celtics to win their games because they count in the standings.  But once the Celtics lost a Tournament of Meaninglessness game, they were going to need to advance on the tiebreaker.  So in their last game of group play, they ran up the score to advance.  I would have been 100% fine if they won without running up the score and didn’t advance.  What would have happened if they didn’t advance?  Instead of playing two games that count in the regular season standings, they would have played two games that count in the regular season standings.  Now their reward for advancing is playing a road game for a chance to advance to the semifinals in Las Vegas.  So if they win tonight, they lose a regular season home game.  But tonight counts in the standings and the semifinal game counts in the standings.  So I hope they win their next two games.

If the Celtics win those next two games, they play in the Tournament of Meaninglessness championship game.  And that game would mean absolutely nothing.  It’s the only game of the tournament that doesn’t count in the standings.  They’re playing for rich basketball players to be slightly richer.  Why would any fan care?  If the Celtics make it, I will watch the game and the only thing I will be rooting for is for the Celtics to get through the game without any injuries.  If it was up to me, I would sit Tatum, Brown, Porzingas, Holiday, White, Horford, and Pritchard.  Let the players who haven’t gotten a good contract in their careers try to make some extra money and don’t take any chances of their best players getting hurt.  The only way I would care about whether or not the Celtics would win or lose would be if they were playing the Lakers.  And that would be entirely because I want the Lakers to lose every game they play and not because I care about the Tournament of Meaninglessness.  I would still sit all of the Celtics’ best players.  Kevin Durant is one of my least favorite athletes, but I would be totally fine with losing the last game to the Suns as long as no Celtics got hurt.  If the Celtics do win this tournament, I would be mad if they hang a banner for it.  They should just have a certificate in an office somewhere.

If the NBA wanted me to care about this tournament, it should have meant something.  I will preface this by saying that this is a stupid idea, but they could have made advancing in the tournament the first tiebreaker for the playoffs.  So the eight teams that advanced would have a tiebreaker over the other 22 teams.  The four teams that make it to the semifinals would have a tiebreaker over the other 26 teams and so on.  That would have been a stupid way to break ties, but it would have given me a reason to care about this tournament.  But as it is, the tournament is the Tournament of Meaninglessness.  So go Celtics.  Win the next two games that count in the regular season standings and then just don’t get hurt in the last game.

The best thing about this tournament ending is that nobody will care about it anymore and I won’t have to hear about it anymore.