Adam Silver considering NBA midseason tournament

Adam Silver had some bold new ideas for the crowd of reporters waiting for him on Tuesday at the Las Vegas Summer League, including one that has several scratching their heads -- a midseason tournament.

Silver’s exploratory idea involves a tournament that would be showcased in Las Vegas. Similar to soccer, it would essentially be a quick tourney for NBA teams to win a trophy outside of the NBA Championship.

It’s not immediately clear how exactly this would work. For example, the UEFA Champions League takes the best teams from around Europe, where several leagues such as the Premier League in England, Bundesliga in Germany and La Liga in Spain all have top talent that afford their teams the ability to challenge for victory.

However, the NBA is the top basketball league on the planet, and by a large margin. Sending international teams to the U.S. would likely result in them being crushed, but the games could still draw. A domestic tournament, similar to the FA Cup (England), Copa del Rey (Spain) or U.S. Open Cup could pit the NBA against lower division teams from the United States. Whether that means including the D-League or college teams is unclear.

The tournament could also pit NBA players against each other, whether by regional makeup or by current team. The idea still seems to have a lot of details to be worked out and doesn’t appear to be anywhere near ready for launch.

The commissioner also gave his opinion on LeBron James’ return to Cleveland, ultimately stating that The King’s homecoming was good for the NBA as a league. Recently, a story on TIME.com suggested that James could be worth up to $500 million to Cleveland’s local economy alone.