Great post, thanks! As a Raptors fan, I'm glad they didn't do groups based on divisions again, given how deep our division is (Boston, Philly, NYC, Brooklyn).
One-game-take-all championships in sports like basketball that are traditionally best-of-seven in North America are generally fun. I'll probably watch the in-season tournament (IST) championship game. I'm curious to see if the basketball court designs are as visually busy as last year. I felt that was sort of the biggest IST headline last year. A year later, the IST seems as unimpactful to me as an NBA fan as I imagined it would be when it was announced. It's just for TV deals and advertising dollars in my eyes. I'm curious if other NBA fans are more passionate about the IST than I am. Maybe if your team is better that makes it more exciting. They're just another of the 82 regular season games to me, and winning the IST doesn't come close to the impressiveness of winning a championship