From an entertainment perspective, the NBA's 2023 In-Season Tournament (IST) was a rousing success. The Lakers won, and Tyrese Haliburton broke out as a national superstar during Indiana's electrifying run. You could tell the players were legitimately into the games. The stakes really meant something, if only as a matter of competitive pride for the already-rich stars, but also for the $500K that went to each player on the winning team, which is no small sum for some of the young/bench guys.
Earlier this week, the league announced a re-branding of the annual in-season competition -- now known as the NBA Cup -- along with game dates and a new logo.
On Friday, the six groups for the 2024 NBA Cup, which are separated by conference and randomly drawn based on win-loss records from the 2023-24 regular season, were revealed. They are as follows.
WEST (GROUP A) | WEST (B) | WEST (C) | EAST (GROUP A) | EAST (B) | EAST (C) |
LAKERS | |||||
BLAZERS |
As a reminder of how the NBA Cup formatting works, the following explanation comes from NBA.com:
All 30 teams have been randomly drawn into groups of five within their conference based on win-loss records from the 2023-24 regular season. Beginning Tuesday, Nov. 12 and continuing through Tuesday, Dec. 3, each team will play four designated Group Play games on "Cup Nights" -- one game against each opponent in its group, with two games at home and two on the road.
From there, eight teams will advance to the knockout rounds. Those eight teams are decided by the ones with the best standings in their respective groups, plus two wild cards. The wild cards are defined as one team from each conference with the best record in group play that finished second. Once the knockout round starts, it'll be single-elimination games in a team's respective market before shifting the semis and championship to Las Vegas in mid-December.
Regarding the overarching schedule, the games will count toward regular season standings except the championship finale. While Friday marked the announcement of the groups, a television schedule has not been finalized. The games will be available nationally, though a full schedule won't be released until August.
