The NBA is trying something a little different this year with its inaugural In-Season Tournament — a league-wide, knockout competition meant to mimic the mid-year events of European soccer.
It’s a fun concept with the NBA hosting the championship game in Las Vegas. There’s also bit of extra incentive for the players and coaches in the form of an $18 million prize pool for the winners. To make matters more engaging, home teams are rolling out special edition courts for each game during tournament play.
Some of them are really cool! Some of them are not. And some, like the Denver Nuggets’ court, don’t even meet NBA regulations.
Before the Nuggets and Dallas Mavericks opened up pool play on Friday night, Grant Williams noticed something was a bit off with the three-point line when his usual shot wasn’t falling during morning shootaround.
“Everything was short,” Williams said per the Associated Press. “Plus, I could just tell from the perception, either it was the blue court and it’s messing with my eyes in the empty arena, or this line is long.”
It was the latter. The three-point arc painted on the court was much further back than it should’ve been. The Nuggets fixed the mistake before tipoff, but the evidence was still noticeable.
“You could tell the line is still kind of marked on the court,” Williams said. “But we’ll make it work. Sometimes, imperfections happen so you’ve got to adjust.”
Both Denver and Dallas shot over 40 percent from behind the arc on Friday, so it didn’t seem to throw off to much once the game actually started. The Nuggets won, 125-114, but the larger point is this: never create a new court when a simple floor sticker will suffice.
