2016 NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions: Group Play Introduction

Congratulations to the Cleveland Cavaliers, our 2016 NBA Champions! You have entered the ranks of the immortals, teams who will forever be remembered in history as champions. But just how good are you historically?

That's what I'm setting out to answer this summer... again. I'm taking the last 65 NBA champions, as well as all nine ABA champions, and putting them into one big tournament with the intent of finding the greatest of them all.

Now, all of the preliminary stuff has been settled. The nine ABA champions have finished off their mini tournament to rank themselves, and those rankings are set to go. Meanwhile, I have whittled down the 74 team field to 72 with the recently completed Play In tournament.

At this point, we can get to the nitty-gritty. Before the tournament started, I preranked all the NBA champions based on their performances in the 2013 and 2015 tournaments. I then broke those rankings up into groups of teams, most of them seven-team groups; the top seven teams formed a group, followed by teams 8-14, and so on. The exceptions came in the middle, where I only took teams 29-34 for the purpose of adding the 2016 Cavs, and then at the end, where I took the last nine teams and divided them up for the Play In Tournament. Ultimately I ended up with nine pools of seven teams, then added in the ABA teams to the respective pool that matches their finish in the ABA Seeding Tournament.

With that information in mind, I can officially set up the groups. I will once again have eight groups for double round robin play, where each group will receive one team from each pool. This is an effort to keep each group competitively balanced, or as close to it as possible. Each of these groups will simultaneously run a double round robin tournament, where every team gets home and away games against everyone else in the group. Of the nine teams in each group, only four will advance on to the Elimination Round, meaning only 32 of our 72 teams advancing to this stage get to play beyond the first week of August. So with our teams in place, here are the groups for this year's Tournament of Champions.

Group A: 1991 Chicago Bulls, 1972 Los Angeles Lakers, 1983 Philadelphia 76ers, 2014 San Antonio Spurs, 2006 Miami Heat, 1974 Boston Celtics, 1970 Indiana Pacers, 1995 Houston Rockets, 1965 Boston Celtics
Group B: 1969 Oakland Oaks, 1985 Los Angeles Lakers, 1987 Los Angeles Lakers, 1974 New York Nets, 1970 New York Knicks, 1993 Chicago Bulls, 1975 Golden State Warriors, 1990 Detroit Pistons, 1973 Indiana Pacers
Group C: 2005 San Antonio Spurs, 2012 Miami Heat, 2008 Boston Celtics, 1999 San Antonio Spurs, 1975 Kentucky Colonels, 2000 Los Angeles Lakers, 1981 Boston Celtics, 1968 Pittsburgh Pipers, 1956 Philadelphia Warriors
Group D: 1996 Chicago Bulls, 1988 Los Angeles Lakers, 2009 Los Angeles Lakers, 1976 Boston Celtics, 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, 1963 Boston Celtics, 2007 San Antonio Spurs, 1962 Boston Celtics, 1978 Washington Bullets
Group E: 2015 Golden State Warriors, 1992 Chicago Bulls, 1971 Utah Stars, 1977 Portland Trail Blazers, 1982 Los Angeles Lakers, 1969 Boston Celtics, 1960 Boston Celtics, 1961 Boston Celtics, 1953 Minneapolis Lakers
Group F: 1986 Boston Celtics, 2001 Los Angeles Lakers, 1984 Boston Celtics, 1989 Detroit Pistons, 1998 Chicago Bulls, 1979 Seattle Supersonics, 2004 Detroit Pistons, 1968 Boston Celtics, 1952 Minneapolis Lakers
Group G: 1997 Chicago Bulls, 1976 New York Nets, 2011 Dallas Mavericks, 2002 Los Angeles Lakers, 1967 Philadelphia 76ers, 1972 Indiana Pacers, 1964 Boston Celtics, 1966 Boston Celtics, 1958 St. Louis Hawks
Group H: 2013 Miami Heat, 1971 Milwaukee Bucks, 1994 Houston Rockets, 1973 New York Knicks, 1980 Los Angeles Lakers, 2010 Los Angeles Lakers, 1957 Boston Celtics, 2003 San Antonio Spurs, 1959 Boston Celtics

I had an "Oh man!" moment as I was setting this up, figuring we would get to see a pair of matchups between the only two teams to win 70 games in an NBA season. I then nearly had to rewrite this section thanks to Oklahoma City going up three games to one on the Warriors before Golden State stormed back and made me rewrite stuff again. Then, of course, I had to put an addendum on here with Golden State's inability to close out the Cavaliers, who have brought Cleveland a title for the first time in half a century. They now get to celebrate before getting thrown right back into the fire.

The '96 Bulls headline what has turned into pretty much a group of death including an '88 Lakers team that made the 2013 quarterfinals, an '09 Lakers team that will feature a motivated Kobe Bryant, as well as that '16 Cavs team. I'm also intrigued by Group H, which has an underrated '71 Bucks team challenging that very tough 2013 Heat team, along with a couple other teams that are no slouches in the '94 Rockets and '73 Knicks. Group C is tilted heavily modern, with four teams from the new millennium. Even Group E, which features the '15 Warriors who were the top overall seed in last year's tournament, along with the '92 Bulls, '77 Blazers, and '82 Lakers is going to be tough. The ABA teams, meanwhile, got pretty well spread around, though there are a couple groups with multiple squads. On the whole really, these are some fantastic groups.

Beginning in July, I will have four groups a day playing a round, determined by a random number generator. This will mean some groups will have to play back to backs, but every team has two byes scattered throughout their schedule. It's not evenly divided in half, unfortunately, but there should be enough two day layoffs as well as the possibility of a four day layoff thanks to said byes where teams should be able to reasonably play 16 games in those 36 days.

From each of these groups, only the top four teams will advance. In the event of a tie, head to head records will be the primary tiebreaker for placing and advancement. If the teams split, records against teams above the tie will come into consideration, then record against teams below the tie, and finally by point differential. My guess is 9-7 will be needed to advance to the Elimination Round, while a record of at least 12-4 is going to be the baseline to win a group and get home court advantage through the first two rounds of Elimination play.

For fans of these 72 teams, rest up. The chaos begins when the calendar turns to July.