The NBA’s Play-In ‘Guy’ Has Responded To LeBron James

Before LeBron James suffered a high-ankle sprain in late March, the Los Angeles Lakers were firmly in position as a Western Conference playoff team. But, now that the superstar forward has missed 21 of the team’s last 23 games, the former title favorites now sit at a precarious No. 6 seed position — just one spot ahead of this year’s unprecedented 7-10 play-in games.

Now that the Lakers are in jeopardy of losing their guaranteed postseason spot, LeBron has started to speak out against the new playoff format. Earlier this week, the injured King shared his displeasure with the setup saying, “Whoever came up with that s— needs to be fired.”

While the new playoff format received unanimous approval from the NBA’s Board of Governors and has been considered by league offices dating back to 2009, Executive Vice President of Basketball Strategy & Analytics Evan Wasch has taken the burden as the designated “play-in guy.” Just one day after LeBron’s comments, Wasch responded to the criticism.

“Obviously, we welcome feedback from our players and teams,” Wasch said Tuesday by text message, per The Washington Post “But, on balance, we believe the play-in tournament offers more benefits than downsides.”

Though some players like LeBron may not like the effect this format has on their playoff standing, it’s already had a notable impact on fan interest around the league this season. With more teams in the hunt for those contentious extra two spots, more NBA fans are tuning in to watch late regular-season battles.

“You’ve significantly increased the competitive incentive in a much wider swath of the standings [for teams] to want to move up,” Wasch said. “The intent is to give more teams, more markets and more fans the feeling that they still have something to play for. On that basis, it’s absolutely been successful.”

After leaving the Lakers’ loss to the Raptors on Sunday with ankle soreness, LeBron is set to miss back to back games on Thursday and Friday of this week. On Friday, his squad is set to take on the Portland Trail Blazers, who are just one game back from LA in the No. 7 position.

The Lakers have now gone 9-12 in games without James through this injury stretch.

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