2016 NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions: Group Play Day 7

Today marks the one week point of this year's Tournament of Champions. Every team has played at least one game, with most of the field having played three games to date. It's still very early in the tournament, and anyone has the ability to be one of the 32 teams that will advance to play deeper into August.

You will notice that on the right side of the page I have links to the standings pages. I will try to update these as best as I can over the next few days, but I am out of town for the next few days, so the standings page may not be totally up to speed. Just wanted to give a fair warning.

In our fourth round of games, Groups D and F will conclude its second consecutive day of games, while Groups B and H return to the court after a day off. Once again, all simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's take a look at our results from today.

2016 NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions: Group Play Day 6

We're finishing up the third round of games here in this year's NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions. Almost a week into tournament play, most of the 72 teams are still pretty well bunched together in their quests to finish in the top four of their respective groups to advance to the Elimination Stage.

I mentioned this briefly yesterday, but this round of play is the first of ten instances of home-and-home series being played between teams in consecutive rounds. I decided that I would split these series up by at least a day, which is why Group D is returning to action today after a day off when they normally would have had the potential to play yesterday. Groups F, E, and G will also take the court again after having had the last couple of days off for the holiday. Once more, all simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Time to play some basketball.

2016 NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions: Group Play Day 5

Hope you had a wonderful holiday yesterday! While you get back to the daily grind, our NBA and ABA players are back at it as well.

Today begins the third round of games in Group Play, and our first example of some scheduling quirks. Group D, who played yesterday, has home-and-home series scheduled where two teams are playing each other back to back (except the '88 Lakers, who have four days off with both of their byes falling here). I don't want those home-and-homes being played on consecutive days, so when I set up the schedule, I made sure the randomizer didn't force that on teams. Possibly as a result of that decision, Groups A, B, and C are all seeing action for the second day in a row, while Group H is back in action after taking the holiday off. Once again, all simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's check out today's results.

2016 NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions: Group Play Day 4

Happy Fourth of July! For the second straight year, I'm celebrating the holiday with some basketball.

Really, today's game are probably being overshadowed by the "Holy crap!" news that broke this morning with Kevin Durant's defection to the Golden State Warriors. If I ever do another Tournament of Champions after this one, the '17 Warriors are now all but a lock.

This would be a day where, were this tournament being played in reality, games would be played throughout the day, with a preference on early start times as much as possible so people can still go see fireworks in the evening and hopefully make whatever other parties are scheduled for the day.

This works out in part because it's an even-numbered day, so no back to backs are part of it, which minimizes strain on players. Groups D and B return from a one day layoff, while Groups C and A see action for the first time since Opening Day. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Enjoy your holiday everyone!

2016 NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions: Group Play Day 3

64 of the 72 teams in this year's Tournament of Champions have played their opening game. The remaining eight will also get their debuts in over the next couple of days, while 56 other teams play their second games.

The Tournament is officially in full swing now, as we still have about five more full weeks of basketball to narrow this field of 72 down to 32. Every game matters, at least until we get close to the end and teams find themselves eliminated with nothing but pride to play for.

On today's slate, Groups G and F will conclude the first back to backs of the Group Stage. Meanwhile, Groups E and H are back in action after having yesterday off. With two groups and 14 teams playing their second games in as many days, I intend to adjust minutes a little bit, just to make sure that these players aren't getting overworked. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's play!

2016 NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions: Group Play Day 2

Let's get the other half of the field into the action.

Yesterday saw the official kickoff of Group Play for this year's Tournament of Champions. 32 teams have seen their fortunes rise or fall, while four teams got an immediate bye. We're repeating the pattern today with the groups that have yet to see any action.

A couple of these groups are going to be playing the front end of back to backs, just with how the randomizer set up the schedule, but this will all be balanced out over the remaining five weeks with byes and scheduled two day gaps between games.

In the meantime though, Groups B, D, F, and G begin their tournament play today. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's get to it!

2016 NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions: Group Play Day 1

The marathon begins.

Over the next five-plus weeks, I am going to simulate a total of 576 games between 63 of the last 65 NBA champions as well as the nine ABA champions. It's a lot of information to pore through, though I'm not going to try keeping stats again this time since it's just too much. Tracking game results, however, is doable.

A couple weeks or so ago I unveiled the official tournament field of these 72 teams and their combined schedules. After going through this grueling gauntlet, only 32 are going to remain.

To minimize workload on a given day for me, our fictional arena staff, and the players themselves, I'm splitting each of the 18 rounds of the double round robin group play in half, so four of the eight groups will play their scheduled games or receive their scheduled byes each day. This schedule was randomly generated, so there will be some back-to-backs scheduled here; it was unavoidable. With two byes sprinkled in for each team, combined with built in off days as a result of those back to backs, it shouldn't be bad. Each team will play 16 games over the course of the next 36 days, which from a little research is a fairly standard regular season workload.

To kick off the tournament, Groups A, C, E, and H will open their schedules. The remainder will tip off tomorrow. To find these results, I am going to try to work with each team's roster to get the best possible lineups out on the floor, while also making sure to manage minutes to not exhaust anyone, especially with back to backs factoring into the schedule. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Good luck to our competing teams, and let the NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions begin!