Milwaukee Bucks conclude In-Season Tournament run with positive thoughts on and off court

LAS VEGAS – The Milwaukee Bucks’ trip to Las Vegas was shorter than the team had hoped, with a loss to the Indiana Pacers in the semifinals Thursday. But in looking at the In-Season Tournament as a whole, the organization left feeling good about the inaugural event the NBA created this season.

On the court, the Bucks went 4-0 in East Group B play and earned a home game against the New York Knicks in the quarterfinals last Tuesday.

“It gives that excitement and that different level of competition and care that you don't usually get in December in an NBA season,” Bucks guard Damian Lillard said after the team arrived in Las Vegas. “I think it's doing what it's supposed to do. A lot of teams who probably didn't appreciate it in the first one or two In-Season Tournament games are probably wishing like, man, we should have took this a little more serious for this opportunity.”

As the Bucks were finishing their warmups under the theater lighting of T-Mobile Arena on Thursday afternoon, team president Peter Feigin agreed.

“Literally (general manager) Jon Horst and I were just talking on the way over here about the great infusion of competitiveness, an intensity level early in the season, which can only help especially if you’re winning.

"On the business side, a demand for tickets, an excitement. Then the metrics have just been great. Literally individual ticket sales. The ratings, both locally and nationally, have been off the charts. I think mission accomplished.”

Feigin, also the president of Fiserv Forum, also noted the benefit of having an additive for early regular-season games.

“The interest in the NBA has always traditionally kind of blossomed after Christmas and this has put a whole new wrapping on November-December, which is crucial and great for business, great for basketball,” he said. “The players are psyched to be here, which is another part of it.”

As for Tuesday’s game against New York, which wasn’t determined until very late on Nov. 28 after the Bucks beat Miami, Feigin acknowledged there were logistical challenges with the short notice.

But the Bucks announced a sellout of the 17,448-seat venue for their victory over the Knicks.

“We didn’t know the opponent, the date and the time which is all really challenging when you’re trying to sell out an arena,” Feigin said. “For us, a little lucky in that we have demand, we’ve got an unbelievable base of season-ticket holders, so the challenge is turning the switch as fast as we possibly can, having a good house for the Knicks game which was great to happen. But a real challenge.

“I think the league and all the teams – and we’ve talked very day about the pros, the cons – that really is the challenge, to figure out on a local operations level for teams, how can we time that better, how can we get better awareness, how is it customer-centric for ticket buyers? We’re cognizant of it. It was a real challenge, but it worked out.”

Looking ahead to the next In-Season Tournament

Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James called NBA commissioner Adam Silver a “genius” for implementing the In-Season Tournament, but it doesn’t mean there won’t be changes coming for the event.

Oshkosh native and Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton thought adding another pool-play game to avoid the awkward blowout scenarios of the point-differential tiebreaker could be a good change. There was some conversation around baking in an additional off day following quarterfinal play, also. The Bucks, for example, arrived in Las Vegas early Wednesday morning after their victory over the Knicks and then played at 2 p.m. local time Thursday.

Lillard said increasing the financial incentive could only help (the winning coaches and players will earn $500,000 each) – and that may yet happen depending how the league can fold this event into its current league-wide media rights negotiations. And, individual teams may be able to capitalize on local opportunities now that a full tournament has been played.

“Now we’ve had a taste of success, so how do we enhance it?” Feigin said. “For us, how do we take this platform and market it, sell it, title it, play it as a big media component? We know what it is now and we can now think about – I wouldn’t say a mature product – but we kind of now know what the product is, have enough advance time to think a year ahead.

"It’s no longer aspirational or conceptual, so when you talk about your audience of the games, you talk about your sponsors, you talk about your media audience, you can actually kind of do it in real equity like, ‘this is what it is, this is how we’re gonna enhance it, it’s only going to get better.’

“So that’s great, to kind of get Year 1 and how this can really grow. To Adam Silver’s credit, this is Premier League 101, like how do we create these microcosms to make it exciting for the fans.”

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