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To determine which teams would be in the six groups, the NBA split the league into conferences and then further divided them by winning percentage. Then, they randomly selected teams from each of those sets and assigned them to the actual groups for the tournament.
Each of those groups, as well as their predicted winners, can be found below
East A: Brooklyn Nets, Charlotte Hornets, New York Knicks, Orlando Magic, Philadelphia 76ers
The New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers are probably the better teams, but the Orlando Magic fit the profile of a successful in-season tournament squad a bit better.
Orlando has multiple rising stars in Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero, as well as a handful of others on rookie contracts (which makes that monetary bonus for the winning players mean a little more).
East B: Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, Toronto Raptors
The Miami Heat have a pair of superstars with multiple deep playoff runs in Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, but they also have some intriguing young talents who should be taking on more responsibility next season.
Tyler Herro will take a slight step forward next season, while Jaime Jaquez Jr. will take a big one. And their performance in this tournament will be a big part of that.
East C: Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Washington Wizards
This sort of flies in the face of the factors already discussed. The Boston Celtics are a veteran team that just won the NBA title. Seeing them take it easy during the in-season tournament wouldn’t be all that surprising.
But Boston is also a very real juggernaut with a three-point-heavy attack that can beat anyone, even if one or two Celtics are out. The