NBA In-Season Tournament: How Does it Work?

In this video my brother Mark aka MFA goes over how the NBA's new in-season tournament works and how each group is selected. The tournament involves splitting each conference into 3 groups of 5 teams, which are randomly drawn from 5 pots of 3 teams each (listed in order of last year's season rankings). The group stage involves playing each team inside the group twice, one road and one away, while the games count towards the regular season. The top team in each group, and 1 wildcard from each conference make it to the knockout stage. The first knockout stage is the quarter finals, while the losing teams play each other in each conference; once again all games here count towards the regular season. Next is the Semi-finals, which also count towards the regular season. The Finals will be held in Las Vegas and will not count towards the regular season. Every player in the knockout stages gets a financial bonus, while the champion gets $500,000 per player! Note also that every in-season tournament game will have the court painted in custom tournament colors.

This is the first year that the National Basketball Association (NBA) has included a tournament within the regular season. The goal is to increase the excitement around the early part of the long NBA season. I think it's a great idea, what do you think?

The timestamps of key parts of the video are listed below:

NBA In-Season Tournament: 0:00
Group Play: 0:36
Knockout Rounds: Quarter Finals: 1:39
- Semifinals: 2:25
- Finals: 2:44
Conclusion: 3:12
Tie Breaker: 3:51
Choosing the Groups: 4:16
- Example: Eastern Conference: 4:49
What do you think of the Tournament? 5:37

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