Update: mid season tournament prize may be an extra draft pick?

[SleepingHero]

They could reward the winner with 10 million in extra cap space the next season.

10% extra cap is way too much. Like waaaaaaaaay too much. BUT I think that's an on the right track and a fantastic idea. Give the winning teams a credit, sorta like an MLE that they can use in trades or to sign someone. It'll be especially helpful for good teams that are usually capped out and need some wiggle room giving them an incentive to go all out. 

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Regarding the play-in for the playoffs, I think that's a great idea as well. Usually the difference between the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th seeds are quite small in the West (and to be honest not significant in the East since they've always been top heavy for the last decade+). Not just 2 years ago we almost had a 3 way tie for the 8th seed in the West. Having a play-in the last 2 weeks before the playoffs makes the 6th seed all that more valuable and adds excitement for the lower seeds. It also gives incentive to not tank, unless you're truly bottom barrel. 

This doesn't really do much in terms of actual playoff impact as well, as the 8th seed has only been to the finals once in the history of the NBA. And theoretically, if the 7th and 8th seed are "better teams" by record, they should have no issues against the 9th and 10th seed. I think this would be the perfect format to return the best of 5 series. A mini-playoffs to pregame the actual playoffs would help the playoff atmosphere start early, and create cool story lines.

The in season tournament is a stupid idea unless they give a tangible award for the teams. A fake "Mid-season championship" with a "Mid-season finals MVP" is worthless, lazy, and stupid. But giving teams an incentive to actually try to win the tournament is a great idea. 

I don't mind reducing the schedule to 78 games, but any more than that is stupid imo. 78 should cut out all the back to backs, but I don't think it'll ever stop load management from being a thing. 

(Also if they do this play-in for the playoffs, then they'll have to return to the old way of giving out season awards. Can you imagine trying to award the regular season awards after basically 2 different playoffs? People already don't care to watch the circle jerk award show they parade around.)

Of course if the NBA really cared, just taking the best 16 teams from both conferences would be the easiest and most simple thing they could do. But at the end of the day they're going to choose what makes more money.