The NBA officially announced details about its new In-Season tournament for the 2023-24 season, and Warriors superstar Steph Curry gave his initial thoughts on the midseason competition.
While speaking to reporters Thursday ahead of the American Century Championship at Edgewood Tahoe Resort in Stateline, Nev., which will air Friday through Sunday on NBC Bay Area, The Golf Channel and Peacock, Curry said he's keeping an open mind about the Las Vegas tournament.
"It's fun for fans to have something new to kind of lock in, especially early in the year," Curry said. "For us, it doesn't change the regular season schedule in terms of the amount of games we're playing, just the championship game that there's a lot on the line monetarily, the trophy, the narrative of who is kind of the best team in the early part of the season. It's something different. The venue in Vegas will be fun for a lot of fans to come in just for those two, the semifinals and the championship game.
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"But it will take an identity of its own over time. It's hard to kind of predict what it's going to feel like or look like from a fan perspective, a player perspective. But again for us, as players, unless you're in the championship game playing for the prize money and the trophy and the pride and all that, it's still 82 games. It's just under a different narrative."
Warriors coach Steve Kerr publicly supported the new event, claiming it will "add a layer of excitement and energy" to the league.
The event has been envisioned by commissioner Adam Silver for years, who wanted to bring a European cup-style competition to the NBA. Golden State forward Gui Santos is quite familiar already.
The Brazilian prospect, who was selected by the Warriors in the second round of the 2022 NBA Draft, helped bring Brazilian basketball club Minas to its first Super 8 SKY Cup championship last January. The 21-year-old believes the tournament will be great for the NBA.
Golden State Warriors
“I liked it a lot, because when you know it’s a championship – in a short time, you can be a champion,” Santos said Sunday after the Warriors’ loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. “It’s a different feeling.
“If you have that in the NBA, it would be good because during the season, in the middle of the season, you get to have a championship. You got to still play like it’s the playoffs to be a champion.”
The new annual competition will debut in the upcoming season and will include all 30 teams. The tournament officially will begin on Nov. 3, with the semifinals on Dec. 7 and the championship game set for Dec. 9 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
It will consist of two stages: Group Play and the Knockout Rounds. The 15 teams from each conference were divided into three groups of five teams via a random drawing, per the NBA. The Warriors are grouped with the Sacramento Kings, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs.