Will a team that goes 2-2 in group advance to the single elimination round of the NBA In-Season Tournament by 2025?
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Ṁ255
2026
No64%

There are 3 groups of 5 per conference. They play 4 games of round robin. The path for a 2-2 team to advance to the round robin is if either

  1. All 5 teams go 2-2 in a group

  2. All 3 2nd place finishers in a conference are 2-2

Here's some quick math to help compute the odds:

There are 10 games in group play so 1024 possibilities. Of those 24 fall into case 1. 440 fall into case 2.

So there is a (1000/1024)^6 ≈ 86.7% chance no group winner is 2-2, but in reality the teams are not equal, so the odds are closer to 90%.

Then there's a (1-(440/1024)^3)^2 ≈ 84.8% chance no wild card is 2-2, but in reality the teams are no equal so it's closer to 88%.

Combining these there's a 22% chance a 2-2 team makes the single elimination round in a season.

so 1-(1-0.22)^3 means this market should be around 50%.

This is just my analysis, bet yes if you think it's more likely than I calculated or no if you think it's less likely.

Also account for the possibility the NBA discontinues the tournament or makes a second in season tournament or if adding expansion teams changes the format so it becomes impossible or guaranteed for a 2-2 teams to go to the single elimination round. But generally speaking all of these scenarios should be unlikely to happen in the next 2 years.

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This can resolve as everyone was 4-0 or 3-1 that qualified

@KeithBaumgart it says 2025.