Mr. President is onto something here.
The NBA's In-Season Tournament has been a success, and PBA veteran Gabe Norwood believes a local version will benefit the Philippine league.
In the latest episode of the Let It Fly podcast on YouTube, the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters veteran gave his thoughts on how he thinks it will work in the PBA.
"I came up with the idea of possibly, having the All-Filipino Conference be the In-Season Tournament. So you basically, have conferences, the Governors’, the Commissioner’s, but every Wednesday is All-Filipino tournament day," he said.
"All the teams play. You put the SMC group in one group, MVP in a group, you got your independent (teams), you scatter however you want, the top teams out of each group come out, the second place in each group has to play in a round robin, however, you wanna play it."
The PBA is currently running on a three-conference format per season, and Norwood's suggestion will bring it back to a two-conference format, with the All-Filipino aspect as the In-Season Tournament.
"It comes down to scheduling, but just maximizing playing days, also giving imports time to rest. One day out of the week, it’s All-Filipino day."
Another league veteran, Jared Dillinger agreed to Gabe's suggestion.
"There needs to be some polished parts but the whole idea of it is cool."
According to the nine-time PBA champion, the league should embrace change.
"I’m all for change, there just needs to be readjustments on how we operate. The PBA is awesome, we love the PBA, we’re all for it. We just wanna continue being progressive."
There have been mixed reactions in the initial buildup to the NBA's In-Season Tournament, but general opinion, especially among players remained positive. In-Season Tournament games have been competitive and there was a renewed interest in games played in what was previously dubbed as down months. Perhaps the PBA can take inspiration from that and start from Norwood's suggestion.