Basketball On The Internet.

IT tips off tomorrow night, the NBL's latest copy of an NBA concept, the "in-season tournament," when the Ignite Cup's opening matches are underway in Auckland and Sydney, these games additionally counting toward regular season results, with only the Final, scheduled for the Gold Coast, a separate entity.

Why do we need it? Because the NBA did it. We have the ludicrous "play-in tournament" now too, which is basically just a top-six finals formula but we have to copy "big brother" and call it the play-in because who knows, the sky might fall in if the NBL made its own way.

Surely the unprecedented success of the NBA-NBL series in Melbourne last Friday and Sunday proved Larry Kestelman's dream of being taken seriously by The Show has happened and is happening.

We don't need to still slavishly follow their every move.

After all, much of what the NBA is doing lately is to cover falling ratings in the USA.

AFL champion player and Swans premiership coach Paul Roos said as much recently (right) and he is 100 per cent correct.

The NBL actually had a few top-six formulas it used over many years before reinventing the wheel with the "play in tournament".

While the Ignite Cup results - other than the Final - will count toward the championship ladder, its point of difference will be the fact it will follow the PreSeason Blitz formula where each win is worth three Cup points and every quarter won worth one point. 

Win a game and every quarter, as Townsville Fire recently did as it claimed the WNBL's Townsville Tip-Off preseason event, and you clean up the maximum seven points.

Drawn quarters are worth half a point to each team.

Here's the big news of the Ignite Cup - the top two teams will compete in a standalone final, with a total prize pool of $400,000, 60 per cent of which will go directly to the players.

The winner of the final takes home $300,000, while the runner-up receives $100,000. The remaining prizemoney is split between the players and the clubs.

The games will be played exclusively every Wednesday night, contributing to both the Ignite Cup standings and the regular season standings.

It launches with Illawarra at New Zealand tomorrow and Melbourne facing Sydney at Qudos Bank Arena, in both instances the visitors starting as favourites.

United will be minus Shea Ili (hamstring) for a few weeks, the injury sustained in the fighting 10-point loss to New Orleans Pelicans.

On a positive note, Tyson Walker is fine and Chris Goulding could be a surprise starter.