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Tim Bontemps, ESPN
LAS VEGAS — The NBA officially unveiled its newly-formed in-season tournament, and the NBA Cup that teams will claim for winning it, at Summer League on Saturday afternoon. The event is the culmination of a vision NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has had for years to bring a European cup-style competition to the league.
“This is a concept that has been rumbling around the league office for around 15 years,” Silver said on a special episode of “NBA Today” from “NBA Con” as part of the league’s annual coming together in Las Vegas. “We thought what a perfect opportunity for a global league like the NBA, and it’s a perfect fit for our game.
“New traditions take time. But, all throughout sports, we are seeing new innovations, and now is the time for this NBA in-season tournament.”
As part of Saturday’s announcement, the league also unveiled the six five-team groups – three made up of Eastern Conference teams, and three made up of Western Conference foes – that will make up the group stage of the tournament:
Group 1: Philadelphia 76ers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks, Indiana Pacers, Detroit Pistons
Group 2: Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks, Miami Heat, Washington Wizards, Charlotte Hornets
Group 3: Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets, Toronto Raptors, Chicago Bulls, Orlando Magic
Group 4: Memphis Grizzlies, Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Lakers, Utah Jazz, Portland Trail Blazers
Group 5: Denver Nuggets, LA Clippers, New Orleans Pelicans, Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets
Group 6: Sacramento Kings, Golden State Warriors, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs
To create the groups, the NBA used a World Cup-style draw process, splitting each conference into five pots that were separated by last year’s regular season standings. Pot 1 featured the teams that finished first through third – so, in the East, the Bucks, Celtics and 76ers – followed by teams 4-6 landing in Pot 2 (Cavaliers, Knicks and Nets); teams 7-9 landing in Pot 3 (Hawks, Heat, Raptors); teams 10-12 landing in Pot 4 (Bulls, Pacers and Wizards); and teams 13-15 landing in Pot 5 (Magic, Hornets and Pistons).
From there, one team was randomly selected from each of the five pots to create what the league hopes will be three evenly-matched groups of teams to compete against one another.
The group play portion of the tournament will consist of four games – one against each of the other four teams across each group – that will take place on seven dates across the month of November. This year, those dates will be Nov. 3, 10, 14, 17, 21, 24 and 28 – a combination of four Fridays and three Tuesdays.
Evan Wasch, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball strategy and analytics and a key person behind the creation of the midseason tournament, said that the league is going to try its best to have back-to-backs as part of those group games held to a minimum.
“The commitment we made to teams is that we would do everything in our power to avoid the group play games being the second night of back-to-backs, it will likely be impossible to avoid some of them being the first night of back-to-backs,” Wasch said. “It is probably infeasible for us to deliver a schedule where they’re not the first or second night of [any] back-to-backs. So the commitment we hope to achieve at this point is to avoid second nights of back to backs.”
From there, the winner of each group will advance to the knockout round, along with the highest-finishing team that didn’t win a group in each conference. Those teams will then play quarterfinal games on Monday, Dec. 4 and Tuesday, Dec. 5 at the higher-seeded teams, with the four teams that win those games advancing to the semifinals on Thursday, Dec. 7 at T-Mobile Arena, followed by the championship game on Saturday, Dec. 9.
Up until the title game, East and West teams will only play opponents within their conference, setting up an East vs. West showdown in the championship game in the same format as the NBA playoffs.
Players will take home $500,000 for being on the team that wins the NBA Cup, while players on the team that loses in the title game will take home $200,000 each, with players on the semifinal losing teams each getting $100,000 and players on the quarterfinal losers taking home $50,000. But while other incentives were discussed to give players and teams more incentive to be invested in the tournament, such as guaranteeing the winner a playoff spot, ultimately the league opted not to enact any such measures.
As part of that process, the league readily admits it’s going to take time for people to adjust to having a new trophy to win, and a new competition as part of the NBA season, but believe that in time it will become an integral part of the NBA calendar.
“Everybody’s not going to buy in right away,” said Joe Dumars, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball operations. “So that can’t be the goal that everybody’s going to buy in from day one.
“These things take time. And I think, as time goes on, I think you can build this up and people can really get into it.”
As for deciding to name the championship trophy the “NBA Cup” – as opposed to, for example, naming it after former NBA Commissioner David Stern as some had speculated – Wasch said the league considered a variety of different names for both the tournament itself and the championship trophy before deciding to go with basic descriptors for each of them.
He did, however, admit that both could change in the future – particularly if sponsors get involved.
“I would say we went through an extensive exercise on naming both the tournament itself as well as the trophy because they don’t have to be the same thing, right?” Wasch said. “Ultimately, we decided that at least in the early years, you’re trying to establish something from scratch and build understanding. And so, the literal terms we felt were just most resonant in the market and we recognize that that could come with some criticism that they’re lacking creativity and they’re too simple. But we felt that that was the best way to build a fan understanding of what this is.
“This is an in-season tournament and the winner will lift a cup – the NBA Cup. Now, could those names change over time? Yes. Could they have entitlements attached to them as we build partners around this? Yes, sure. So I think those things will change, but for now, the sort of more basic descriptors we thought were the right approach to get this off the ground.”