NBA Cup Gives Next Class of Contenders Runway to Fly

LAS VEGAS — Sometimes you don’t get the matchups you want. But the NBA is making the most of the fours teams that did advance this weekend to T-Mobile Arena, the site of the second edition of the NBA Cup.

Several of the league’s most nationally recognized teams didn’t make the Cup’s final four, including the defending NBA champion Boston Celtics and late-stage dynasty Golden State Warriors.

It’s the Atlanta Hawks vs. the Milwaukee Bucks in Saturday’s first game of the semifinals; the Houston Rockets vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second.

The winners play in the finals on Tuesday night.

“When you play four group-stage games followed by a single-elimination knockout, you’re going to get a lot more unpredictable outcomes,” Evan Wasch, NBA executive vice president of basketball strategy and analytics, said in an interview, adding that the format gives developing teams an equal footing.

“We’re just so excited it brings competition across the league—not just for those established, veteran, star-laden teams, but also some of these young and up-and-coming teams.”

Practically speaking, ticket prices have plummeted since those matchups were determined after the New York Knicks and Warriors were eliminated from quarterfinal play. The Los Angeles Lakers, last year’s Cup winner, didn’t even make it to the final group of eight. Neither did the Los Angeles Clippers, the Phoenix Suns or the Denver Nuggets.

As of Friday, fans could buy a Bucks-Hawks ticket for as little as $25 via StubHub, a Thunder-Rockets ticket for $27 and a finals ducat for $33 on the secondary market.

That’s really not what you want.

“That’s not our problem,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said Friday during a workout day media session. “Everyone had a chance to be here. And you can’t tell me everyone wasn’t trying to be here. The teams that are here earned it and they should be here.”

The Bucks are the only one of the four teams that have gone to the semis in both years of the in-season tournament, last year losing to the Indiana Pacers, 128-119. The Lakers then clobbered the Pacers by 14 points to win the first Cup. The Lakers had toppled the New Orleans Pelicans in the semis, 133-89, to reach the final.

The Vegas arena was rocking back then just like Lakers home games. But to Wasch’s point, the Pacers were an up-and-coming team, and the tournament gave Tyrese Haliburton a chance for exposure while sharing a court with LeBron James. This year, there’s Milwaukee center Giannis Antetokounmpo and Atlanta guard Trae Young at one end of the spectrum—two established contenders led by big names, though the Hawks have had their wings clipped since reaching the Eastern Conference Finals in 2020-21.

“Yeah, I feel like this team has been embracing the challenge each and every night from the beginning of the season,” Young said Friday. “We haven’t looked too far ahead in any moment. We’re just taking it day by day. This Cup we’ve done the same thing and not looked too far ahead and just focused on the next opponent.”

The likes of Houston center Alperen Sengun and Oklahoma City guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are at the other end. Their teams are atop the West standings yet have no conference finals appearances with their current cores—at least for now. Sengun, who stylistically resembles a Jokic-lite in his best moments, and Gilgeous-Alexander, the 2023-24 NBA MVP runner-up, are hoping to help their teams over the hump this year. Several young, talented teammates, including Amen Thompson with Houston and Jalen Williams with OKC, surround them.

“You’re always trying to win.,” Gilgeous-Alexander said about the current tournament. “That’s my mindset. That’s my teammates’ mindset. You’re always trying to win and do something we love every day, play basketball.”

Even for the Bucks, though, the NBA Cup carries meaning beyond the prize payouts.

“It’s an early litmus test for the team,” Rivers said about a club that opened 2-8 and has since won 11 of its last 13, earning another trip to Las Vegas. “If you look at last season, I think Indiana doesn’t make it to the Eastern Conference Finals if it wasn’t for this tournament. It gives you a free practice run at playoff situations.”

Rivers wasn’t the coach of the Bucks last season at tournament time. He ultimately replaced Adrian Griffin, who was fired after 43 games, in January. The Lakers fired winning Cup coach Darvin Ham after the season.

Like many of the players and his coaching contemporaries, Rivers said he “likes the tournament” with its almost inexplicable points-differential tiebreaker and garishly colored courts.

The courts are bright and gaudy enough in person, but even more noticeable on television.

When Lakers first-year coach JJ Redick was asked what he liked about the tournament, he said: “First of all, I’ve been very excited I haven’t had to play on a red court yet.”

Phoenix Suns star guard Devin Booker said he enjoyed the tension that the points-differential tiebreaker—which comes into effect if two or more teams in a group have the same record and same head-to-head record—brings to the games.

“It makes you play to the very end, which I’ve always said is how it should be,” he said.

In their last in-season tournament game, the Suns outscored San Antonio by 11 points to finish 3-1 in the group stage. During the game, they monitored the Dallas-Memphis game, which the Mavs won by five points to also finish 3-1. But with 16 more points than the Suns in the point-differential tiebreaker in their four tournament games, the Mavs went on to the quarterfinals, where they lost to the Thunder.

Do guys play harder in these games than the usual regular-season tilts?

“Yeah. I’d be lying if I said we didn’t, that we treated them all the same,” Booker said. “We knew what was at stake. It’s a fun little twist in the season.” 

What’s at stake is that players, coaches and assistant coaches on the winning Cup team will each bring home $514,970, with smaller payouts for the seven other teams that reach the quarterfinals. While that may seem like pocket change for a player like LeBron, who’s making $47.8 million this season, it acts as a huge incentive.

That’s why Earvin “Magic” Johnson was also nicknamed, “Buck.” Because when the money was on the court, he’d go out there and scoop it up. No matter how much it was.

“It’s important we were here last year,” the Bucks’ Antetokounmpo said. “We wanted to win the Cup, but unfortunately, we didn’t. We had a good chance to make it to the finals, but down the stretch, the last two minutes, we turned the ball over. Hopefully this year we can erase that bad taste we have in our mouth . Every Cup game we’ve played this year, we’ve been extremely locked in, we play to win. That’s why we’re here.”

Sports business reporter Jacob Feldman contributed to this story.