Adam Silver wants to improve the NBA's IST with...more colorful courts

Look forward to more colorful courts and even higher stakes during future NBA in-season tournaments.

Following the conclusion of the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament, league commissioner Adam Silver mentioned that he was a “big advocate of colorful courts” and said they could get even more creative, The Athletic reported Saturday.

“Obviously, we want to make sure that the players have confidence in them, that the type of paint used isn’t (too) slippery, and I think we’ve dealt with those issues incidentally, but we want to make sure they’re not a distraction,” said Silver. He then went on to tease that there may be new court designs for this year’s NBA Finals.

“For the Finals, we could have a special Finals court,” Silver continued. “Not just with the (Larry O’Brien) trophy in the center, but a little bit more colorful.”

According to a report from ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, the in-season tournament’s stakes may be raised going forward.

“While a top-6 berth was universally seen as a bridge too far among league insiders spoken to by ESPN,” wrote Bontemps, “one idea that had more support was guaranteeing the winner of the tournament at least the seventh spot, meaning they would get two home games to earn their way into the playoffs.”

Bontemps added that there may be pushback because this would immediately clash with the NBA’s play-in tournament and the league’s larger plan to get teams to push through the end of the regular season.

Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner had an idea for a happy middle-ground: a tiebreaker.

“At the end of the season,” said Turner. “if you had a [tie] with somebody, maybe if you win this tournament, no matter what you get an automatic tiebreaker.”

According to Bontemps, others have proposed additional draft incentives and an increased cash purse.