Monty Williams Brace Detroit Pistons Ahead of Inaugural In-Season Tournament

A new tournament system to make the NBA season even more interesting has emerged with the association announcing the modalities to its first ever In-Season Tournament. According to an official release on the NBA website, the inaugural In-Season Tournament is an annual competition that will involve 30 participating teams and runs from November 3 to December 9, 2023.

The tournament hopes to increase interest in the early part of the regular season line-up, while also affording NBA teams additional opportunities to win, engage fans and improve revenue. As expected, the Detroit Pistons will be participating in this debut tournament, but will face stiff competition as most Michigan sportsbooks have tipped the Boston Celtics as favorites.

The In-Season Tournament will take place across two stages, viz the Group Play and the Knockout Rounds. From available information, the Group Play will kick off on Friday, November 3, while the Knockout Rounds will begin on December 4. Below is a comprehensive outline of what each stage entails.

Group Play

Thirty teams will participate in the group stage of the competition and the NBA has made efforts to retain the Conference system in this tournament. Each of the participating teams were randomly drawn, based on their win-loss record during the 2022-23 regular NBA season, and were placed in conference groups of five. In essence, there are three groups for both the Eastern and Western Conference, with each group consisting of five teams.

Each team will play four Group Play games, two of which will be played on home soil and the other two away from home. Regardless of venue, each team gets to play each opponent in its designated group on what the NBA calls “Tournament Nights.”

Knockout Rounds

At the end of the Group Play stage, eight teams will move on to the knockout rounds, six of them being the leaders of each group and the other two being wild cards. According to the NBA’s official release, the wild cards will be “the team from each conference with the best record in Group Play games that finished second in its group.”

In case two or more teams are tied after the Group Play stage, the NBA has resolved five tiebreakers to be adopted in sequential order. Firstly, the head-to-head record in the group stage will be considered, then the point differential, then total points, then regular season record and finally a random draw, if the teams are still tied. The In-Season Tournament knockout stage will be single-elimination games split into Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Championship.

Prizes

All knockout teams will compete for a chance to win from a prize pool, with the eventual allocation depending on how far the team progresses. There will also be an award for the Most Valuable Player of the tournament as well as an All-Tournament Team. This selection will be determined by a joint consideration of players’ performances in the Group Play and Knockout Rounds. The NBA has also decided that knockout games will count towards a team’s tally of regular season games.

The Detroit Pistons have been drawn in East Group A and they are pitted alongside the Philadelphia 76ers and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Other teams in the group include the Atlanta Hawks and the Indiana Pacers. Without a doubt, the Pistons will face each one of these teams on Tournament Nights.

Michiganders can expect to watch the Pistons at the Little Caesars Arena for two of the four total matches. The NBA is yet to release the full fixtures, so it may be difficult to predict which games will take place on home soil and which ones will be played away. Dates for each game will also be updated in due course.

Like all other NBA season tournaments, Michiganders will be allowed to place bets on their preferred teams. Currently, the futures market is open, and players can already make predictive wagers on the team to win the In-Season Tournament.

Bets can be placed on NBA betting sites in Michigan and unsurprisingly, the Pistons have +900 odds to win the tournament, the worst odds of their group. Michigan online sportsbooks have favored Boston Celtics to clinch the inaugural title with odds of -105. DraftKings Sportsbook MI places Celtics +700 to win while the Nuggets (+950) and Bucks (+1000) are closely placed as second and third favorites.

More information about the tournament, team groups and frequently asked questions can be gotten from the NBA official release.