2023 NBA In-Season Tournament odds: New event tips off Friday as regular-season action with Celtics, Bucks overall title favorites
The NBA's In-Season Tournament debuts on Friday.
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This writer isn't a big soccer guy but is well aware of how wildly popular in-season tournaments like the Champions League or Gold Cup are around the world in that sport. The NBA is the most global of the major American sports leagues and commissioner Adam Silver for years has pushed for an in-season tournament to mimic soccer's success. He got is his wish, and the first In-Season Tournament tips off on Friday with seven games. The futures for the event are very similar to overall league futures with the Celtics and Bucks both as +900 favorites to win it.
All 67 games of the In-Season Tournament count as regular-season games -- whereas the play-in games for the postseason exist in a nebulous zone in terms of statistics, etc. -- except for the championship game. All 30 clubs were randomly drawn into groups of five within their conference based on win-loss records from last regular season (similar to how the Champions League places its teams).
Every Friday and Tuesday through Nov. 28 (except for next Tuesday because it's Election Day), the entire NBA slate will be made up of tournament games with each team in its group playing the other four twice each (two home, two away).
Here are the groups and DraftKings odds to win:
Is there a Group of Death in there? I would argue West B is the toughest, especially now that the Clippers have James Harden. West A would have been quite strong if Memphis wasn't missing Ja Morant for the first 25 games due to suspension, as the Grizzlies have fallen apart early on without him. East C might be the deepest group if Orlando is ready to take a step forward this season as many expect.
The winner of each group – the first tiebreaker is head-to-head record -- and two wild cards, which are the two second-place teams with the best records, advance the quarterfinals starting Dec. 4 at the higher-seeded teams. The semifinals are on Dec. 7 and the title game is Dec. 9, both in Las Vegas. The winning team gets prize money ($500,000 per player; runners-up get $200,000; losing players in semis get $100,000 and losing players in quarters get $50,000; head coaches get similar bonuses) and the NBA Cup.
The 22 teams that don't make the quarterfinals will play regular-season games on Dec. 6 and Dec. 8 but obviously those matchups won't be known for weeks. Thus, the NBA only sent out an 80-game regular-season slate for every team this summer.
All 30 home courts have custom-painted designs to help differentiate from regular games, which is a very unique twist. There will be an MVP and an All-Tournament team as well. Denver's Nikola Jokic is currently the +400 favorite for regular-season MVP and +1200 favorite for the tournament. Obviously, his odds need to be much longer because the Nuggets might not even advance. The Nuggets are +1000 third favorites in the tournament.
Most players seem to be excited about this event because they don't have to play any extra basketball unless they make the final. New Sixers coach Nick Nurse spent a number of years coaching in Europe, where in-season basketball tournaments have become a staple, and he's a big fan of this setup.
"Personally I love it," Nurse said earlier this season. "Been through it a lot of years [overseas]. It's a part of every season over there. Obviously, it comes from soccer, football over there, so people are really in tune with it, even the players are in tune with it – what's going on and why you're doing it. I love it from that standpoint. I think the other standpoint is when you get down to one-game knockouts at this level I think will be amazing to watch when it gets to that point. Yep, I do [think players will take it seriously], but it may take a minute. I think the play-in, everybody questioned that and hated it, and now everybody loves it. That one went pretty fast. We'll have to see."
Oklahoma City's chances of winning its group will take a hit Friday because superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will sit out vs. Golden State. He's dealing with a knee issue, but the NBA is counting on teams not sitting healthy players during this event that is costing the league tens of millions of dollars, and it surely will crack down on that.
Friday NBA In-Season Tournament games:
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