The NBA Cup works, but here are changes that can make it perfect

12/19/2024 05:47 PM

When Adam Silver and the NBA announced the formation of the very first In-Season Tournament ahead of the 2023-24 season, this idea was met with a lot of criticism. In what turned out to be a successful spectacle during a normal dead period at the start of the season, the league rebranded this event to the Emirates NBA Cup for the 2024-25 season. Once again, competitiveness and playoff-like atmospheres throughout the NBA highlighted this tournament, which ended with Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks winning it all in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.

From a first-person point of view, the NBA Cup certainly creates more energy and passion across the league. Not everyone is a fan of the NBA Cup, but there is no denying that the players have enjoyed themselves. More importantly, it allows teams to prove themselves early on and use this tournament as a benchmark for their progress ahead of flipping the calendar to a new year.

Take the Bucks for example — a team that started the season with a 2-8 record. There was talk about Antetokounmpo possibly being traded and that Doc Rivers wasn’t the right coach for this group. Sure, there are probably still some who believe in all of this, yet the Bucks used the NBA Cup as extra motivation to kick-start their season and completely write off what happened through the first few weeks of the new season.

Now, Milwaukee’s confidence is at an all-time high, Giannis and Damian Lillard know they can win on the biggest stage together, and the Bucks are suddenly the one team in the NBA that everyone is talking about.

That is why the NBA Cup has been so impactful to the league as a whole, as its unpredictability and meaning create new life. At the same time, there is plenty to talk about regarding how this event will change moving forward. From talk about the format to NBA ratings declining to the incentive of this NBA Cup as a whole, media members and league personnel were constantly discussing these topics in Las Vegas over the last few days.

While the NBA Cup has been successful, to an extent, several topics and changes could wind up making this tournament the best invention the league has ever had.

NBA fans, players enjoying uniqueness

Some of the courts, not all of them, are great for the NBA Cup. We could probably do without the blood-red and dark-blue courts, but the idea of having unique courts and styles for each team is amazing. It is also great that a matchup between teams like the Bucks and Detroit Pistons or the Atlanta Hawks taking on the Cleveland Cavaliers holds so much meaning.

These games had a playoff-like atmosphere to them, which is exactly the idea the NBA had when they created the NBA Cup in the first place. Whether it’s for the incentive of money, the environment, or just the feel of the game, NBA fans and players alike have said a lot of positive things about this in-season tournament.

“I love this system, this play, NBA Cup system,” Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo said during the NBA Cup in Las Vegas. “It was my first time going to watch the Euroleague Final Four this year in Berlin, and you could see, like it was two games, Semifinal and Final, and how much it means to the teams, to the atmosphere. It was incredible, the attention to it, the pressure that we had. So I love that the NBA kind of adapted this system.

“Within the regular season, you have games that mean more, but when you come here, you have two games that bring a lot of attention to basketball, to the NBA, to the teams, and teams have the opportunity to kind of make something happen.”

Giannis is not the only player to speak on the format of the NBA Cup, as Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander also claimed that his team’s journey to Vegas was “fun” and that the “added stakes” to these tournament games presented a different feel.

“It’s good prep for the postseason,” Gilgeous-Alexander told reporters. “It’s obviously heightened stakes than a regular season, 82-game season and it’s good to get reps in games that mean a little bit more and have stakes to it. It’s been fun and beneficial to the group for sure.”

As far as the format goes, it seems to make sense to create a Final Four feel to the NBA Cup semifinals and championship game, which have been hosted by Las Vegas each of the last two years. Eight teams advancing to the quarterfinals and going into knockout rounds from there following the group stage games seem to work perfectly.

Perhaps the greatest impact that teams have enjoyed over the last two years is the increased competitiveness and feel of these NBA Cup games that help prepare them for bigger games down the line.

“It’s closer to, like, elevated regular season than it is to the playoffs in my opinion,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said of the NBA Cup while in Las Vegas. “The time of year has to do with that. The nature of a series versus a one-and-done situation has to do with that. But playing elevated opponents, good opponents with some elevated stakes, elevated distractions is a good experience in December for our team.”

Other than maybe changing the courts a little bit so they are easier on the eyes of those watching at home, there isn’t anything that the NBA needs to change about the uniqueness of the NBA Cup. However, instead of going with a generic logo in the center of the court for the semifinals and championship game, maybe this court could incorporate aspects of all 30 teams’ special court designs that are used during group play.

Seeing a mosaic-style NBA Cup logo in the middle of the court would be a sight to see!

What’s up with this NBA Cup schedule?

Going from regular-season games to the NBA Cup games is a brilliant change of pace for the NBA. However, why go back and forth between all of these games and only play tournament games on Tuesdays and Fridays in November?

To be perfectly honest, fans simply lose track of what games are supposed to matter more, and there is a fatigue factor that comes into play regarding the NBA Cup.

The NBA wants every team to give it their all for these tournament games, but what they aren’t taking into account is that these games are so spread out. Not to mention, there were even instances of teams going from an NBA Cup group stage game to immediately playing a regular-season game on back-to-back nights.

Aside from looking at the group stage schedule format, those teams who are fortunate enough to compete for the NBA Cup in the semifinals and championship game face a quick turnaround regarding having to go from these elevated games in Las Vegas to regular games.

“I guess if I could tweak one thing, it would be after this to try to give the teams that are playing in the finals a cushion,” Bucks head coach Doc Rivers pointed out while in Vegas. “You know, I remember last year, I think I told Darvin [Ham] this, during the game, I actually said, ‘Oh no, how are the Lakers going to play right after this?’ Because emotionally you get high and you get thrown right back into it. I think
we have a day off, and then we have a back-to-back. So we are going to try to cushion it the best way we can.

“But that would be the only tweak, I guess I would make. I love it. I love the format. I like that people want to win this thing, and it’s good.”

Daigneault cited similar comments to the media, stating that it would be a “challenge” for both the Thunder and Bucks to come out of their championship game against one another and immediately have to flip the switch back to the regular season.

“You know, we’re coming off of — we’re basically on a six-day West Coast road trip right now, and our next game coming out of this is three time zones away, four-hour flight to Orlando, and then a back-to-back against Miami,” Daigneault stated. “If you look at that as a road trip, it’s an unprecedented road trip. I mean, the NBA would never schedule that. They would never put a team on a six-day West Coast road trip, and then fly them east for a back-to-back.”

There is a clear need for change regarding the four teams that advance to the NBA Cup “Final Four” simply because of what Rivers and Daigneault say they are currently dealing with. The Thunder shouldn’t have to go from a three-hour time difference and immediately play a back-to-back against two competitive teams in the Eastern Conference. It is as simple as that.

Along with the idea of changing the schedule coming out of the NBA Cup, the league may want to consider changing the schedule for the tournament altogether.

Why go from a group stage game right back to a regular game? Wouldn’t it make more sense to play all of these games over the course of one or two weeks, and then play the knockout rounds the following week where those who don’t make it face their mini-break like we just saw?

For example, it would make a lot more sense for the final two weeks of November to be strictly NBA Cup games, and then jump into the quarterfinals, semifinals, and championship games shortly after. This makes it easier for fans to get excited about the NBA Cup, and it also allows teams to be at their best for what they know will be more important games.

It will be interesting to see if Silver and the league office look to make changes to the way the NBA Cup is scheduled.

Is money enough of an incentive?

One of the hot topics regarding the NBA Cup when it first started was the incentives for playing. This has been something the league has been experimenting with for years now, which is why they recently implemented the Player Participation Policy that impacts end-of-season awards. NBA Cup games are no exception to this policy, as any games a player misses still impact their status for these awards and accolades.

The greatest incentive to play and win the NBA Cup for teams is the money. Regardless of how much each player makes, $500,000 is $500,000 no matter how the check is cashed. For guys like Giannis and Dame, this is pocket change that they can use to help their friends and family. For other young players who may not be in the league one or two years from now, this is life-changing money.

Both the Bucks and Thunder players talked about this idea in Las Vegas, claiming that the idea of earning their teammates this extra paycheck and helping them out financially is certainly at the front of their minds.

“Not everybody gets the same paycheck in the NBA. We have guys that are on two-way contracts and some guys that are fighting to stay in the league,” Thunder swingman Jalen Williams said. “So obviously that money is a bigger deal for some people than others, so we definitely play for that.”

Giannis kept it simple, laying out that some players may never even make that kind of money over the course of their career, so being able to get $500,000 for a downpayment on a house or to help their families is simply “life-changing.”

Is the money enough for these players though? That is a lot of money given out as a reward, but what about winning the NBA Cup itself — Shouldn’t that count as something for the team and the league?

Essentially, the NBA Cup is irrelevant in the sense that it doesn’t count for anything. The stats from the championship game don’t count whatsoever, and all a team gets from winning is the right to call themselves that season’s NBA Cup champions, which doesn’t even come close to being able to call themselves NBA champions.

Many ideas were floated around the press conference rooms in Las Vegas and in the back media rooms as to how the league can create more of an incentive for teams to give it their all for the NBA Cup. The simple answer, aside from counting the stats toward the regular season, was making this championship game an ultimate tiebreaker.

Although giving the winner of the NBA Cup a sure-thing playoff spot seems a little excessive and perhaps too much of an incentive, giving the winner of this tournament the first tiebreaker in any playoff scenario seems to make the most sense.

For example, say the Bucks are tied with a team at the top of the Eastern Conference standings at the end of the regular season. Essentially, Milwaukee would own the tiebreaker, regardless of their record against this team they are tied with, because they won the NBA Cup. Reversely, if the Bucks were in danger of falling into the play-in tournament region of the standings and tied with a team for the 6-seed at the end of the season, Milwaukee would own the tiebreaker in this scenario since they won the NBA Cup.

This is the idea many NBA media personnel tend to like and want to see implemented moving forward, as winning this event has to count for something more than $500,000 in total.

If the championship game isn’t going to count toward a team’s regular-season record, it surely needs to count for some sort of tiebreaker or have a positive influence on their ability to make the playoffs.

Recent ratings decline could factor into NBA Cup location

The greatest topic around the NBA is the continued decline in television ratings. While interest in the NBA is at an all-time high from a social media and global perspective, interest in night-to-night NBA regular-season games is disappearing.

It is kind of ironic that the ratings continue to fall in the league right after they announced their new 11-year media agreements with Disney, NBC, and Amazon Prime, which equates to roughly $76 billion.

Pretty funny, right?

One of the reasons for the formation of the NBA Cup tournament was to generate a buzz during a time when ratings always seem to be low for the NBA at the start of the year since they are competing with the NFL, college football, and the MLB postseason. While many outside the league continue to critique the league’s ratings and come up with solutions for what needs to be changed, Silver is pushing forward with the mindset that everything is fine.

“If you look at other data points, in terms of our business, for example, we've just come off the last two years of the highest attendance in the history of this league," Silver told The Athletic on Tuesday in Las Vegas. “We're at a point where our social media audience is at the highest of any league and continuing to grow exponentially. So, it's not a lack of interest in this game.”

Of course, the NBA isn’t the only league impacted by a drop in ratings, as college basketball and the NHL have seen significant declines recently. More people are switching to streaming instead of cable television, and some tend to only watch highlights via social media, where the NBA has continued to capitalize on its audience numbers.

As far as Las Vegas goes and being the host city for the NBA Cup moving forward, nothing has been announced for the 2025-26 season. With the new media rights deal taking over, Amazon is set to show the NBA Cup quarterfinals, semifinals, and championship game on Prime Video. This could directly impact when and where the tournament is played. At this time, there are no details on conversations between Amazon and the league office as to how the schedule will unfold moving forward.

The idea of moving the NBA Cup out of Las Vegas was another topic of discussion among fans and media in attendance for the semifinals and championship game over the last week, yet the overarching belief is that the league still wants to operate in Paradise, Nevada. Aside from most likely adding an expansion team in Las Vegas over the coming years, Silver and the league have been pleased to see the engagement from fans in the area.

Even the players themselves have acknowledged that the environment in Vegas was great.

“Yeah, it was pretty sweet,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of playing in Las Vegas. “Obviously, I haven’t — we don’t play here every year, but yeah, the environment was dope. The fans were into it. A basketball city. It was really fun playing out there.”

The Thunder star also mentioned how he likes the NBA Cup format giving these games a “March Madness feel” since they were on a neutral site rather than one team having home-court advantage.

If the NBA wasn’t going to hold the final games of the NBA Cup in Las Vegas, where would it be held if not on another team’s home floor? That is the ultimate question being presented, as nobody can come up with a better venue to house this event in the middle of winter.

Madison Square Garden in New York City is a huge market that would appeal to basketball fans, yet there are scheduling conflicts with the Knicks, college basketball teams, and NHL teams that will be playing there during this time. The same can be said of Los Angeles, Miami, and other warmer cities that could host this event during this time.

“It’s fun. It’s fun playing in Vegas,” Giannis told reporters after winning the NBA Cup on Tuesday night. “The atmosphere is incredible. I think the atmosphere in the game tonight was also very, very fun. I can’t wait — I think in probably one or two, three years, there’s going to be a team in Vegas, so we’re probably going to come here more often.”

The NBA is happy in Vegas, the players are happy in Vegas, and T-Mobile Arena was sold out for the championship game on Tuesday night in Sin City.

There are obvious changes needed that could make the NBA Cup a better overall event, but the league continues to be fixated on Vegas being a central hub for their future.

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