| BY CHRISTIAN CLARK | Staff writer About a year ago, LeBron James pilloried the idea of the play-in tournament. "Whoever came up with that s***," James said, "needs to be fired." The sense I've gotten from the majority of NBA fans is the opposite: Mostly, they like it. I think I'm in that camp too. The play-in tournament was was designed to reduce tanking. It's unquestionably working. Only two teams in the West — the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder — aren't trying to win games. Under the old model, the Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans Pelicans, San Antonio Spurs, Portland Trail Blazers and Sacramento Kings wouldn't have much hope at this point in the season. But because of the promise of backing into a playoff appearance simply by winning a pair of games in the play-in tournament, those five teams are still mashing the gas pedal. On the flip side: I can see why you wouldn't want to reward bad basketball teams. The seventh-place Minnesota Timberwolves are 11 games over .500. The 10th-place New Orleans Pelicans are 13 games below .500. If the regular season was over today, there is a scenario in which the Pelicans could send the Timberwolves home and claim the eighth seed by winning two games. Is that fair? Probably not. But there are no perfect solutions. Generally, I'm for anything that makes the NBA regular season more competitive. The play-in tournament does that. The next step — and I doubt the league will ever take it — is to reduce the number of regular-season games. Eighty-two is too many. Chop the schedule down to 58 games. Play everyone twice. Do that, and you address one of your biggest problems, what has become a real scourge for the league: load management. Anyways, big game tonight in San Antonio. The Pelicans won't have Brandon Ingram. They are 3-16 without him this season. Gulp. -- Christian | 
