During the 2023-24 season, the NBA debuted its in-season tournament, also known as the NBA Cup. And it was a success, as far as these things go. While the special courts the league insisted on using for every Cup game were hit or miss, fans generally enjoyed the heightened intensity of what would otherwise be standard regular season games.
The Los Angeles Lakers, led by LeBron James, seemed legitimately excited to be the first to win the Cup and a banner now hangs in Crypto.com Arena.
The 2024-25 season will bring the second iteration of the tournament. Now it's called the Emirates NBA Cup and the "In-Season Tournament" nickname is done away with to keep to what the sponsor paid for. It remains to be seen if the funky courts will remain.
On Tuesday, Aug. 13, the NBA released the full Emirates NBA Cup schedule. Here's everything you need to know about the games and surrounding circumstances.
History of the NBA Cup
One of the more talked-about problems the NBA has faced in the last decade or so has been the devaluing of regular-season games. With such a focus by fans and media on championships won as a metric of measuring greatness, players have zeroed in on the playoffs as the most important time of the year. Which means they will do whatever it takes to enjoy a healthy postseason, even if it comes at the cost of sitting out regular season games or not quite pushing themselves all the way to the limit when a playoff opportunity is not on the line.
The NBA Cup is commissioner Adam Silver's answer to that. By introducing a playoff-like format in the middle of the season, the games are given more meaning. Fans and players both get more invested. In essence, it grants excitement to otherwise relatively boring games in the middle of the NBA calendar.
Notable moments
In the one NBA Cup that's been held so far, LeBron James winning would qualify as the biggest moment. The King is on the back nine of his basketball career and seeing him lock down the Indiana Pacers to lift another trophy was very cool. He earned the first-ever NBA Cup MVP as a result.
2024 NBA Cup Schedule
Here's the full schedule for the 2024 NBA Cup.
Tuesday, November 12
Friday, November 15
Friday, November 22
Tuesday, November 26
Friday, November 29
Tuesday, December 3
NBA Cup Playoff Schedule
NBA Cup Format
The Emirates NBA Cup is separated into a group stage and an elimination stage.
In the group stage, all teams are separated into six different groups, divided by conferences. So there are five teams in the East A group, five teams in the West A group, so on and so forth. Every team will play four games designated as Group Stage Games; each of those games will feature two teams in the same group playing each other.
After those four games are played by each team, the winner of each group (determined by the team with the best record in group play, not overall) will move onto the elimination round. This will unfold in a format similar to the NBA playoffs. There will be a quarterfinals and semifinals before one team from each conference meets in the NBA Cup finals.
Tie-breakers
With four games played, there is a pretty good chance a pair of teams finishes tied atop their group in the win-loss column. If that is the case, the winner of the group is determined by the following tie-breaking procedures, listed in order of priority.
- Point differential in the Group Stage
- Total points scored in the Group Stage
- Regular season record from the 2023-24 NBA regular season
- Random drawing (if two or more teams are still tied following the previous tiebreakers)
In the elimination round, no team can tie and the game will be played until there is a winner, as is the case with regular NBA games.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Full NBA Cup Schedule: Every Game of the NBA's In-Season Tournament.
