The third edition of the NBA Cup’s knockout portion gets underway this week, but a proper reward has yet to be presented.
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Unlike its frozen counterpart, the NBA may need an incentive beyond “Because It’s the Cup.”
The third edition of the NBA Cup’s knockout round is set get underway on Tuesday night, as eight teams will play for a shot at in-season glory. The fateful eight was assembled through group play staged on the early regular season schedule, which carries a small shot of adrenaline as it competes with the final stages of the national football tours.
The Eastern portion of the bracket is first on the list, with a Floridian fracas between Miami and Orlando tipping things off before a divisional duel between New York and Toronto. In Wednesday’s Western proceedings, the Los Angeles Lakers’ quest to become the first two-time champions of the event gets underway against San Antonio after the defending postseason champion Oklahoma City’s attempt to dim Phoenix. The action then shifts to Las Vegas, where Oklahoma City was a runner-up to Milwaukee last holiday season, for the final four and championship segments, staged on Saturday and next Tuesday, respectively.
NBA Cup Prestige?
Three years into this experiment, there has been no true consensus on what, if any, prestige the Cup carries. A major selling point has been the six-figure cash prize awarded to each champion’s roster rep, but trying to center the championship around the idea of a buried bench player getting some extra dollars perhaps says more about the event’s value than the Association would be comfortable admitting.
So what can the NBA do? It’s clear that the Association believes the event has a future and that it’s not going anywhere: one of the major caveats of Amazon’s new television contract with the league was the fact that it now carries rights to the knockout round as well as a good portion of group play’s nationally-televised slate.
A popular proposal in the conversations of amateur and professional observers has been to offer the winner of the NBA Cup an automatic spot in the ensuing playoffs. Even that, however, feels ridiculously hollow: such a concept would already watered down by the fact that the hypothetical playoff seed would be awarded with less than 30 percent of the campaign completed. Not only has a similar approach grown tired in other pro sports leagues (look no further than NASCAR’s controversial “win-and-in” adjustment to its own postseason) but the victor would also be long-open to injuries and other calamities capable of derailing a campaign and creating an unworthy playoff participant.
With all that in mind, BIL has three solutions worth thinking about below …
Play the Lottery
There seems to be no more valuable—if not easy to part with—currency in professional sports than an NBA draft pick. In this modern era, the draft ledger flips more often than the arrival/departure board at LAX at Christmas time, to the point where the newcomers don the headgear of teams they’ll never play for when they finally hear their name called.
Why not give the winner of the Cup an extra chip in the hardwood’s most famous casino games? Under this idea, the winner gets an extra first-round pick to do as it pleases with.
Feel like you’re “one move away” from the postseason title after your Cup run? Go ahead and draft your next big talent that helps you take that next step. Convinced that your Cup title places you in the “buyer” department come the trade deadline? Swap it for your missing piece.
The next question becomes how this pick is policed. Once could move it to the end of the first round (similar to the NBA Finals champion’s choice is placed) but for the maximum drama, one could push it toward the cusp of the Draft Lottery, where there’s a shot to move up. Of course, one probably couldn’t stick it with those rebuilding, struggling, or just outright tanking, but granting the pick the same odds as, say, the Play-In losers feels like a fair compromise. There could be a minor prize for Las Vegas’ runner-up, such as a second-round choice that could, again, play as an asset either in the locale in question or elsewhere.
The Half and the Half Not
A good part of the modern NBA workload discourse centers around the idea that 82 games just might be too many.
But what if one team had 83 on its ledger? This idea comes from Josh Hart, whose New York Knicks will be gunning for in-season glory for the third straight year (the only team to land such advancement). That has given Hart time to ponder solutions, with his proposal centered upon placing an an extra win in the victor’s left-hand column.
“I think what would be really cool is if they solidify it a little bit more, whoever is the winner gets a half-game [extra in the regular-season win column],” Hart said earlier this month, per Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. “You get to the championship game, you get a half-game if you win. If you lose the championship, it doesn’t go against your record. Now you have that half game so you have the tiebreaker and it legitimizes that NBA Cup a little bit more. That’s what I would love to see.”
Maybe just granting a full win would make things a little cleaner on the final tally (and save some ink in the daily newspaper), but Hart might be onto something here. The NBA Cup championship game’s status as a de facto in-season exhibition game feels absolutely bizarre in an era where load management reigns and some pro leagues are trying to ditch their preseason slates entirely (the NFL’s has already gone down by one game while the NHL’s will shrink next fall). College football observers are used to the concept early on, as an increasingly amount of prospects—and even entire programs—are sitting out of non-playoff bowl games.
Adding some incentive to the final, beyond a bittersweet banner, would go a long way in raising the profile.
Emirates NBA Cup 2025: Knockout Rounds Overview ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/EUw5AP9GEr
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) December 8, 2025
The Most Gets to Host
Speaking of in-season exhibitions, even modern All-Star Games are increasingly viewed as time-wasters: The NFL has turned its Pro Bowl into ESPN 8: The Ocho-style events that wouldn’t be out of place on “Battle of the Network Stars” or your local elementary school’s gym class.
Going with a “USA vs. The World” is perhaps a last ditch effort from the NBA it save its own version and one has to assume such a move was inspired by the NHL icing its own showcase in favor of last winter’s well-received “4 Nations Face-Off.”
Even with the changes, some hardwood pride has still lingered in hosting All-Star Weekend, which no doubt brings the NBA’s social scene together. If the Association wants to keep its Cup’s impact felt beyond December, while keeping the standalone importance of the title game secure, “All-Star drinks at your place” could be an interesting way to compromise.
As it stands, the next two All-Star Weekends (Los Angeles/Phoenix) are accounted for. Under this proposal, the 2026 Cup champion could thus play for a chance to host the 2028 All-Star Weekend, which would negate any concerns about scheduling and logistics. A win now would benefit the team in question later.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
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