2015 NBA Tournament of Champions Preview

Two summers ago, I undertook a major project. It was probably the biggest project I've done with Confessions of a Sportscaster. Now, with the Golden State Warriors being crowned the new NBA Champions after knocking off the undermanned Cleveland Cavaliers, I'm going back to the hardwood and doing it all again.

2013's edition of the NBA Tournament of Champions was a straight up single-elimination tournament. I figured it was the easiest way to go through and find our best team of all time. However, I ran into a couple flaws. I found a cutoff to make it a successful 64 team field, at least in theory. However, WhatIfSports, my simulator, only went as far back as 1952. I worked around it as best as I could, but I want to make sure that all 64 participants are available. This time, they are.

The other flaw I had was with half of the field dropping out immediately due to the single-elimination nature of that tournament. Part of this is me mourning the 1992 Bulls getting bounced in Round 1 by the 2012 Miami Heat. Many other teams saw their chances end early, including quite a few first round sweeps. I want to avoid that this time, so we're changing the format.

This time, we're going to try this in a similar fashion to the World Cup. The last 64 NBA champions, from the 1952 Minneapolis Lakers through this year's champion, were seeded from 1 through 64 because originally, I was going to go back to the single elimination format. Instead, I'm going to split the 64 team field into eight groups of eight teams apiece. These teams will play in a double round robin where the top four in each pool advance to a single-elimination best of seven tournament. I debated about doing a double elimination tournament, but I think it would end up being a logistical nightmare. This way still, each team will play a minimum of 14 games through the month of July.

So, to fill in each group, I'm going to use the seedings I had already made in an attempt to balance each pool out to some degree. For the 2013 Tournament of Champions, the field was randomly seeded. Since I have a baseline this time, it makes sense to balance the groups as best as possible. Each group will be filled randomly in the following fashion:

• Pool A: Teams seeded 1-8 (made the Tournament of Champions Quarterfinals or further)- 1 team
• Pool B: Teams seeded 9-16 (were eliminated in the Third Round)- 1 team
• Pool C: Teams seeded 17-32 (were eliminated in the Second Round)- 2 teams
• Pool D: Teams seeded 33-64 (were eliminated in the First Round/2014 Spurs/2015 Warriors)- 4 teams

With no baseline for the 2014 Spurs or the 2015 Warriors, they're getting put in the only pool that makes sense. Now, it's certainly possible that we'll see some interchange where some Pool D teams are better than teams in Pool C or even Pool B due to bad 2013 matchups, while Pool B or Pool C teams took advantage of older champions to advance as far as they did. This is an attempt to balance that out.

So, without further ado, here are the groups for the 2015 NBA Tournament of Champions:

• Group A: '12 Miami Heat, '89 Detroit Pistons, '10 Los Angeles Lakers, '79 Seattle Supersonics, '82 Los Angeles Lakers, '70 New York Knicks, '02 Los Angeles Lakers, '15 Golden State Warriors
• Group B: '96 Chicago Bulls, '71 Milwaukee Bucks, '85 Los Angeles Lakers, '75 Golden State Warriors, '66 Boston Celtics, '65 Boston Celtics, '80 Los Angeles Lakers, '68 Boston Celtics
• Group C: '72 Los Angeles Lakers, '83 Philadelphia 76ers, '93 Chicago Bulls, '77 Portland Trailblazers, '58 St. Louis Hawks, '95 Houston Rockets, '54 Minneapolis Lakers, '92 Chicago Bulls
• Group D: '13 Miami Heat, '11 Dallas Mavericks, '00 Los Angeles Lakers, '09 Los Angeles Lakers, '59 Boston Celtics, '99 San Antonio Spurs, '07 San Antonio Spurs, '53 Minneapolis Lakers
• Group E: '97 Chicago Bulls, '08 Boston Celtics, '73 New York Knicks, '74 Boston Celtics, '81 Boston Celtics, '14 San Antonio Spurs, '90 Detroit Pistons, '78 Washington Bullets
• Group F: '88 Los Angeles Lakers, '86 Boston Celtics, '94 Houston Rockets, '60 Boston Celtics, '98 Chicago Bulls, '56 Philadelphia Warriors, '04 Detroit Pistons, '61 Boston Celtics
• Group G: '05 San Antonio Spurs, '01 Los Angeles Lakers, '87 Los Angeles Lakers, '64 Boston Celtics, '67 Philadelphia 76ers, '55 Syracuse Nationals, '57 Boston Celtics, '03 San Antonio Spurs
• Group H: '91 Chicago Bulls, '84 Boston Celtics, '63 Boston Celtics, '69 Boston Celtics, '06 Miami Heat, '62 Boston Celtics, '76 Boston Celtics, '52 Minneapolis Lakers

At an early glance, I could call just about any one of these groups the Group of Death. Group B has a lot of good teams (though they have the defending champion '96 Bulls to contend with). Group C has a lot of teams with good big men, but also have to deal with the '92 Bulls, who got the aforementioned tough matchup in 2013. Groups E and F have some legendary teams in them and could see any of them win it. The fun one to look at is Group H, which is Celtics-heavy (I knew it would happen to one group, and this guarantees that at least one iteration of the Celtics will make the elimination rounds).

So, to set up the double round robin schedulers, I am using another site as a tool. Tournamentscheduler.net has a great tool for setting up the double round robin, so I will use it to set up the schedule for each pool. Starting in July, I'll have posts up every day with results, though I will split each round of the double round robin out over two days. Some teams may end up having to play back-to-backs in this scenario, but would get an off day (or possibly two) following that. I played around with the scheduler a little bit, and originally was going to use a random number generator to randomly pick rounds because it picked a team and gave them seven straight road games, followed by seven straight home games. In an effort to not do that, I found a way to fully randomize it. Now, quick glances at the schedule show that this means some teams will face another twice early on (a prime example comes from Group E, where the 2008 Celtics and 1997 Bulls play a home and home in Rounds 2 and 3). I think this is an acceptable sacrifice to balance the home/away disparities. It will work, and means less calculations to go through.

Again, the top four teams from each group will advance. If there are any ties, head to head records will be the first tie breaker, followed by records against teams above the tie, then below the tie, and finally by point differential. If I need to concoct any other tiebreakers, I will do so towards the end of group play, though I think those four will be enough. From there, we will reseed the teams randomly among eight four-team brackets where group winners will get home court advantage through the first two rounds and group runners-up get home court in the first round. Once we reach the quarterfinals, home court will be decided primarily by seeding. If the seeds are the same, the tie will be broken by group record, and if there's still a tie, it will be broken by group play point differential. If I need to come up with more, I will do so when we reach the quarterfinals.

I hope you enjoy these next few months as we go on a run to once again find the best NBA team of all time!