The eight-month marathon to determine the 2023-24 NBA champion has just begun, but starting Friday, the NBA tips off its first five-week sprint to determine another champion.

A new in-season tournament starts Friday night with a few weeks of pool play. That leads to an eight-team, single-elimination playoff where the last team standing wins the NBA Cup and a pile of cash.

‘Whether it’s international basketball, international soccer, individual sports here in the U.S., golf, tennis, fighting, racing – the idea of being able to win multiple things each year is a well-accepted practice. And, in fact, (it) creates very exciting competition throughout the calendar,” NBA executive vice president of basketball strategy and analytics Evan Wasch said.

With football filling sports viewing time in the fall, Christmas Day has been called the unofficial start of the NBA season for the casual fan. But this year the NBA can’t even avoid NFL on that day, either. Perhaps these new tournament games – scheduled on the NFL’s off days – will usher in an earlier unofficial start for the league.

NBA vs. NFL schedule on Christmas Day in 2023

How the NBA in-season tournament works

Each team plays the other four teams in their group (three groups of five teams in each conference) on Tuesdays and Fridays in November. The teams with the best records in their group plus a wildcard from each conference move to a one-week knockout round in December. The semifinals and final are Dec. 7 and Dec. 9 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

‘We think we can create another peak in the NBA calendar in December, another thing to celebrate, another thing for players, teams, fans to rally around,’ Wasch said.

Results from the in-season tournament games will count toward teams’ regular-season records. The teams that don’t make the knockout round will play on the evenings following the quarterfinal and semifinal games. That ensures all teams play at least the usual 82 regular-season games, although some teams will have an extra home or away game.

NBA in-season tournament prize

Players on all eight teams who make it to the knockout round are guaranteed at least $50,000 each. They can earn 10 times that if they bring home the NBA Cup. A tournament MVP and all-tournament honors will also be awarded.

How the in-season teams were placed in their groups

The teams were placed in their groups somewhat randomly with a couple of key qualifiers in the selection process:

The teams remained in their 15-team Eastern and Western conferences.Teams were distributed in their conferences in sets of three based on their 2022-23 records. For example, the top three teams in the East (Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers) are in different groups just as the teams with the worst records were dispersed (Orlando Magic, Charlotte Hornets and Detroit Pistons).

Which teams are in each in-season tournament group

NBA in-season tournament schedule

The tournament does not add games to the 82-game schedule, but it adds extra incentive for players to compete in these early-season games. And maybe it will draw a few more viewers, too. Here’s an overview of the five weeks:

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw said he had left shoulder surgery Friday, but expects to be back sometime next summer.

Kershaw posted his status on social media saying that team physician Dr. Neal ElAttrache repaired glenohumeral ligaments and his shoulder capsule.

“I am hopeful to return to play at some point next summer,” Kershaw wrote. “Thanks for your prayers!”

The 35-year-old Kershaw missed six weeks of action because of the shoulder injury. He finished the 2023 season with a 13-5 record, a 2.46 ERA, and struck out 137 batters in 131 ⅔ innings.

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He started Game 1 of the NL Division Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks and was shelled for six runs and only got one batter out in the 11-2 loss. The Dodgers, who won 100 games and finished 16 games ahead of Arizona in the NL West, ended up being swept by the Diamondbacks.

Kershaw is now a free agent, after signing a one-year, $20 million contract with Los Angeles last offseason.

Walter Davis, an NBA All-Star and one of the biggest University of North Carolina basketball stars, died at the age 69 Thursday.

Davis was visiting family in Charlotte when he died of natural causes, the university announced.

A Pineville, North Carolina native, Davis is regarded as one of the best shooters to ever put on a Tar Heels uniform, as he was two-time All-ACC honoree in 1976-77. In his senior season, he led North Carolina to an ACC Tournament title and NCAA championship game appearance, where the Tar Heels lost to Marquette. He would finish his career in Chapel Hill with 1,863 points, 670 rebounds and 409 assists while playing for head coach Dean Smith.

Despite the accolades, Davis is known for what he did in his freshman season. In 1974, North Carolina was trailing rival Duke by eight points in the final minute of regulation. The Tar Heels made a miraculous comeback in the final 17 seconds, capped off with Davis drilling the game-tying shot as the buzzer went off. North Carolina would eventually win the game in overtime, but the shot lived on in Tar Heel history.

‘It is one of the most iconic moments in college basketball and, even as a freshman, cemented his place in Carolina Basketball history,’ the university said.

Before heading to the NBA, Davis was part of the Team USA basketball team in the 1976 Olympics, winning gold. He would then have his No. 24 jersey hanging in the rafters of Dean E. Smith Center, and he is the uncle of current North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis.

Walter Davis NBA career

Davis was drafted fifth overall in the 1977 NBA Draft by the Phoenix Suns, and would become the rookie of the year after averaging 24.2 points a game in his first season. He would spend 11 seasons in Phoenix, which included six All-Star selections and two All-NBA selections. He led the team to eight straight playoff appearances from 1978 to 1985, including a Western Conference Finals appearance in 1984.

The final years of Davis’ time in Phoenix was notable for his involvement in the team’s 1987 drug scandal. Davis testified in court about his teammates use of illegal drugs in exchange for immunity.

After leaving Phoenix in 1988, Davis spent time with the Denver Nuggets and Portland Trail Blazers, finishing his 15-year pro career in 1992. Davis retired as Phoenix’s all-time leading scorer at 15,666 points, and his No. 6 jersey was retired by the organization in 1994.

Two former Northwestern football players came forward Friday with new allegations of racism they say they experienced and witnessed during their time on the team in the early 2000s, including a ‘watermelon-eating challenge’ at the end of preseason camp and a coach using a racial slur when referring to an Asian-American kicker.

The former players, Noah Herron and Rico Lamitte, spoke about their experiences during a news conference held by one of the attorney groups that have filed lawsuits against Northwestern in the wake of the hazing scandal that has cast a pall over the school. At least 16 former athletes have filed lawsuits against Northwestern to date, according to court records, alleging forced nudity and sexualized acts, as well as racism.

Herron and Lamitte, who are Black, are not plaintiffs in any of the lawsuits but said they wanted to speak out to hold Northwestern accountable.

‘I personally experienced impact bias and racism. I witnessed fellow teammates experience the same,’ said Herron, a team captain who went on to play briefly in the NFL. ‘Northwestern not only treated players of color differently than our white teammates, but they tried to conform us in our appearance to resemble our white teammates – or what Northwestern would consider ‘The Wildcat Way.’ “

In response to a request for comment from USA TODAY Sports, Northwestern spokesperson Eliza Larson noted in an email that the school has retained former attorney general Loretta Lynch to review the athletic department’s culture and processes for detecting, reporting and responding to misconduct.

‘Any claims of racially motivated hazing are not only disturbing but completely antithetical to our educational and athletics mission,’ Larson wrote in the email. ‘We are and will always be committed to diversity, and we investigate any specific hazing allegation we receive to confirm that every Northwestern student feels safe and included.’ 

The broader hazing scandal at Northwestern led to the firing of longtime coach Pat Fitzgerald, who has denied having any knowledge of hazing within the program and since filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the school.

Herron and Lamitte did not directly allege any wrongdoing by Fitzgerald in Friday’s news conference, and the incidents they described would have occurred when Fitzgerald was an assistant coach at the school under then-head coach Randy Walker. Walker died of an apparent heart attack in 2006, at the age of 52.

Herron and Lamitte echoed claims that had previously been made anonymously to The Daily Northwestern, about Black players being required to cut their dreadlocks or cornrows even as white players with longer hair were not asked to do so. Lamitte, who played from 2001 to 2005 as Rico Tarver, said he was told if he did not cut his hair on his own, coaches would instruct upperclassmen on the team to ‘hold me down and shave it’ at or before the team’s annual preseason camp, known as Camp Kenosha.

‘I ended up cutting it myself, to avoid humiliation and embarrassment,’ Lamitte said, ‘but I witnessed several teammates – some with years of dreadlocks and cornrows – stripped of their identities in front of their peers.’

Lamitte also referenced the ‘watermelon-eating challenge,’ in which he said each position group on the team picked a representative to compete. He said it was intended to be a team-bonding exercise but ‘of course there were jokes tossed back and forth about how racist that it was.’

‘If your group didn’t pick a Black player to participate, losing was assumed, and vice versa,’ he said.

Lamitte also alleged that, following a 2004 game against TCU in which the Wildcats’ Asian-American kicker missed several field goals, Walker said to him that ‘we have an (ethnic slur) in our armor.’

Herron, meanwhile, recounted a separate incident at the 2000 Alamo Bowl in which he claimed two Black players were discriminately punished.

‘The head coach told two white position coaches that if these two Black players were able to walk off the field after their punishment, that they themselves would be fired,’ said Herron, who played at Northwestern from 2000 to 2004. ‘The physical punishment was so severe that one of my brothers, a grown man, defecated himself and needed to be carried off the field.”

One of Herron’s attorneys, Pat Salvi, later clarified that the punishment stemmed from a ‘timing issue’ that caused confusion among both Black and white players on the team, but only the two Black players were severely punished.

Lamitte said the incidents have weighed on his mind in the decades since they occurred. It is unclear whether he and Herron will be able to successfully bring any legal claims against the school due to the statute of limitations in Illinois.

‘A lot of us just tried to move forward,’ Lamitte said. ‘At the time, you want to make it to the NFL. You’re a captain on the team. You’ve got tunnel vision. Stuff goes on, you’re just like ‘oh, that’s a distraction.’ … And then you see that it’s affected people for years on end.’

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @Tom_Schad.

As soon as the basketball left Charlotte guard LaMelo Ball’s hands on a 3-point attempt, Brooklyn’s Ben Simmons pointed toward the Nets’ basket 90 feet away and instructed Spencer Dinwiddie to take off. Simmons grabbed the rebound and threw a one-handed touchdown pass to Dinwiddie for an easy layup.

It was one of Simmons’ 10 rebounds and eight assists in the Nets’ victory against the Hornets amid his impressive start to the season.

It’s early in a long NBA season, but it’s a start that indicates Simmons is returning to the player who was an All-Star in 2019, 2020 and 2021 and All-NBA in 2019-20.

In the right situation surrounded by the right players with the right coach who prefers a style that accentuates Simmons’ skills, the veteran can be a productive player when healthy (he missed all of 2021-22 and wasn’t 100% last season with back issues).

Through Brooklyn’s 2-2 start that includes a road victory against Miami, Simmons averages 7.3 points and team highs in rebounds at 10.3 and assists at 7.5. He also averages 1.3 blocks and is shooting 56% from the field on limited attempts.

He is running an offense that wants to push the pace and has shooters.

“The past 24 months, not really having the ability to get on the court, it gave people a reason to pile on, and it gave them ammunition,’ his agent, Bernie Lee, told USA TODAY Sports. ‘He wasn’t physically ready to play and was under so much pressure to make an attempt to do it, and buying into a narrative with his competitive nature, he wanted to get back on court and quiet detractors.

“Having the ability to take a step back and have more time to complete rehab for his back has been cathartic and he has invested in the work. He has taken perspective (of) his own place in life, his career and with this team.”

Simmons can push the ball, play fast

Nets coach Jacques Vaughn wants to play with tempo and pace and find quality shots early in the offense before the defense has a chance to set up. That can be done off turnovers, missed shots and even made shots. Get the ball and go. The Nets are ninth in pace.

“To impose our will with our pace, it’s definitely how we’re built to play,” Vaughn said. “Now, it takes an extreme amount of commitment on a nightly basis to play this way.”

This suits Simmons. He can find open shooters, and the Nets have them. They are fifth in 3-pointers made at 14.5 per game, No. 2 in 3-point shooting percentage at .417 and No. 1 in fast-break points at 24.0. The Nets have seven players shooting at least 36.4% on 3s, including six at 44.4% or better. That may not hold up all season, but Mikal Bridges should lift his 31.6% shooting percentage on 3s, too.

Simmons’ rebounding leads to offense

Simmons’ rebounding is a bonus for any team looking to push the ball. At 6-11, he has demonstrated his ability to collect missed shots. But now, he is averaging 1½ rebounds higher than his career best (8.8 per game in 2018-19) and 2½ better than his career average (7.9).

He gets his team into fast break and transition opportunities easily and quickly, and the Nets are emphasizing and encouraging that.

Simmons excels with passing, assists

He came into the league a gifted passer and remains one. He can make the extravagant pass or the simple one, and several of his assists this season have been finding an open shooter before the defense has a chance to set up. He is also delivering easy dump-off passes while setting a screen near the 3-point line.

Shooters are getting to their spots at the 3-point line, and he is finding them. His 7.5 assists are leading to 20 points per game, and he’s creating 12.5 assist opportunities per game.

In transition, Simmons puts pressure on defenses with his willingness to attack the rim. He still draws two defenders in those situations, leaving a teammate open.

Can Simmons provide just enough scoring?

Simmons is not going to shoot a lot, especially from outside the three-second lane. He hasn’t attempted a 3-pointer, and all but one of his 25 attempts have been inside the paint. Most have been inside the restricted area. He’s not a high volume shooter or scorer, and he doesn’t need to be on this team. His length, strength and athleticism allow him to get to the rim. The Nets are seventh in points per game (118.8) and sixth in offensive efficiency (115.6 points per 100 possessions). They don’t need him to score 15-20 points per game. The Nets have players to do that. They need him around that 10 points per game, with those rebounding and assists numbers.

Follow NBA reporter Jeff Zillgitt on X @JeffZillgitt