NBA rumors: The bombshell NBA Cup changes on table for future
12/17/2024 08:18 PM
Over the last few seasons, the NBA Cup has served its purpose to juice up the beginning of the regular season. between the multicolored courts, the point differential tiebreakers, and the high-stakes feel of the knockout stage games, fans and players alike have bought into the new in-season tournament format. On Tuesday night, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Milwaukee Bucks will face off in Las Vegas to decide the champion of the second NBA Cup.
Incredibly, Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham is looking to win his second straight NBA Cup after leading the Los Angeles Lakers to the title in 2023.
The NBA Cup has undoubtedly been a success so far, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t improve. The league is already looking at multiple ways to help improve the quality of the tournament. One of those ideas is to make the group stage longer, extending the pool play slate from four to eight games according to Tim Bontemps of ESPN.
“That includes moving the tournament a bit deeper into the regular season,” Bontemps wrote. “But those same sources cautioned that any such discussions were preliminary, and that it was far from likely any changes would be implemented next season. A later-season finish would allow for another tweak multiple sources mentioned over the weekend: doubling the length of the group stage from four to eight games. The argument for that change would be to increase the chances of the best teams advancing.”
Extending the group stage would help the ratings in the knockout stage by helping better teams advance, creating juicer matchups for the elimination games. However, as Bontemps stated, that change is likely at least two years away.
In more short-term news, the NBA Cup is changing hands when it comes to television partners starting next season.
“After TNT and ESPN split hosting duties over the first two seasons, Amazon will take over for the quarterfinals, semifinals and the championship game,” Bontemps wrote. “There have been discussions between the NBA and Amazon about possible schedule changes at some point in the future, league sources told ESPN.”
As the second NBA Cup wraps up with an exciting matchup between two leading MVP candidates in Giannis Antetokounmpo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and two of the top teams in the NBA, keep an eye out for ways that the tournament will evolve in the coming years.
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