Its stupid as shyt. No one can point to a single season in NBA history, where there wasn't urgency amongst the fringe playoff teams in the home stretch...
There's always been teams tanking and always will be. The teams fighting in that 7-10 range are all typically scrapping in the last month of the season to get in anyway, so the play in is useless as an actual tool and is nothing more than a creative concept to get money back that was lost during covid...
I aint fukking with this college ass shyt...
Because you play 82 games to show who was better. You get a full season to prove if you're a Top 8 seed. If you miss the cut, it just wasn't your year...