The inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament in 2023 was success based on almost all metrics. The league set an attendance record that November and television viewership for tournament game windows grew 26% over the previous year. The championship game between the Indiana Pacers and the Los Angeles Lakers was the second most watched game of the season excluding the playoffs. Most importantly, players and coaches bought in.
It will return this year, renamed as the Emirates NBA Cup. Even though you’re familiar with the concept of last season’s tournament, you may not remember all the nuts and bolts of how it works, or the little changes that were made. So, we’ve compiled a list of everything you need to know.
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What is the NBA Cup?
The NBA Cup, formerly known as the In-Season Tournament, is a relatively new event that takes place during the regular season. This will be the second iteration of the tournament. The format was agreed upon by the league and the National Basketball Players Association in the collective bargaining agreement signed in June 2023.
As does the NBA Cup to work?
The 30 NBA teams were divided into six groups of five teams. Each team will play the other members of their group once. Then eight teams will advance to a single-elimination tournament. The team in each group with the best record in group play games will advance, along with the team from each conference with the best record in group play games that finished second in their group.
The knockout phase will culminate in a championship game to determine the winner of the NBA Cup.
What are the NBA Cup timers?
If multiple teams are tied for first place in a group, or for the conference “tie” spot, the tie will be broken as follows, in consecutive order:
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Group stage head-to-head
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Group stage point differential
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Group stage total points scored
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2023–24 regular season record
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Random drawing
Which NBA teams make up the groups?
Each team was placed into a “pot” based on its 2023–24 regular-season record. In each conference, one team was selected from each pot and placed in each of the three groups in that conference. Pot 1 had the teams with the three best records in the conference, Pot 2 had the teams with the fourth- through sixth-best records in the conference, and so on.
When is the NBA Cup 2024?
Most of the NBA Cup schedule is already set. Group games will take place on Tuesdays and Fridays between November 12 and December 3, called “Cup Nights”. All NBA games on those nights are NBA Cup games but also count in the regular season standings.
For the knockout phase, two quarter-final games will each be played on Tuesday, December 10, and Wednesday, December 11. Both semi-final contests will be held on Saturday, December 14th, with the championship on Tuesday, December 17th. The final is the only game in the NBA cup that does not count for the regular season record of a team.
Where is the NBA Cup being played?
All group stage games, except the quarterfinals, will be played in NBA team markets. The semifinals and championship will be held at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, which is a neutral venue.
What is the distribution prize money of the NBA Cup for players?
The payouts for players whose teams advance to the knockout stage are as follows:
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Champions – $500,000
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Runners-up – $200,000
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Losers of semi-finals – $100,000
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Quarterfinal losers – $50,000
Of the 440 players with 2024-25 salaries listed on Spotrac, 278 of them will make less than $10 million, meaning an NBA Cup win would result in at least a 5% bonus for the majority of the league’s players.
Are there prizes for the NBA Cup?
There will be a Most Valuable Player for the tournament and an All-Tournament Team, with selections based on both the group play and knockout stages.
How will the NBA Cup affect the regular season?
All NBA Cup games count as regular season games in the standings except for the championship, which exists outside of the regular season.
To ensure that each team plays exactly 82 regular-season games, the 22 teams that do not qualify for the knockout round will play two additional regular-season games on NBA Cup off nights during December. The four teams that lose in the quarterfinals of the tournament will play one more regular-season game in December against the opponent from the same conference.
What will be different about the NBA Cup in 2024?
The NBA’s colorful courts for last season’s tournament drew (and perhaps dazzled) a few eyeballs. This year will again have special courts, designed by artist Victor Solomon this time, but they are not as loud as last year, and the league involved team creative directors to give franchises more customization.
Notably, the knockout rounds take place on different days of the week than last year, perhaps to avoid competition with the NFL.
There are no major changes to the format of the tournament itself. Of note, however, is that overtime scoring will not count toward point differential ties. This is to prevent a situation that arose last year in which a team leading narrowly toward the end of a game could potentially benefit by going to overtime and winning by a larger margin.
What is the meaning of the NBA Cup?
The NBA regular season is long, with 82 games played over a period of nearly six months. Superstars are sitting out more nights than ever. Playoff results feel increasingly distant from regular season results, as an 8 seed made the Finals two seasons ago. The NBA Cup adds intrigue to the regular season, especially during a stretch of the year when fans’ attention is easily diverted by the NFL and college football.
It’s also about the money. The NBA has agreed to a new package of media rights deals with ESPN, NBC and Amazon ahead of the 2024-25 season, and the NBA Cup’s popular inaugural run has given the league another selling point in negotiations with those partners. The NBA also earns revenue from Emirates’ naming rights sponsorship, and there are more untapped sponsorship opportunities associated with the tournament.
In the words of NBA executive vice president of Basketball Strategy & Analytics Evan Wasch last year, “The In-Season Tournament will provide a new opportunity for teams and players to compete in an exciting format, build their legacies, chase an early season championship. and lift the NBA Cup.” It will add must-win games in the early part of our season creating something new and different for fan bases to celebrate and rally around.”
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