The Milwaukee Bucks are 2024 NBA Cup champions, and it means a significant payday for their players. The Bucks pulled away from the Oklahoma City Thunder in Tuesday's title game, and every Milwaukee player will receive more than $500,000 for winning the title.
Players on all eight teams that made the knockout round of the NBA Cup receive monetary bonuses. But there's a major difference in what players receive for winning the NBA Cup vs. just making the quarterfinals and losing. Here's a breakdown of the compensation amounts for players that make it past the group stage:
- Players who lose in the quarterfinals: $51,497
- Players who lost in the semifinals: $102,994
- Players who lose in the championship game: $205,988
- Players who win the NBA Cup: $514,971
So players on the Knicks, Magic, Mavericks and Warriors -- who all lost in the quarterfinals last week -- are getting $51,497. Players on the Hawks and Rockets, the losers of the semifinals, are getting double that amount. The Thunder players, meanwhile, get more than $200,000 for their second-place finish.
The payouts are slightly higher than last year's in-season tournament in accordance with the league's CBA, which states that the prize money will increase by taking the base number from the first year of the NBA Cup and multiplying it by the "Basketball Related Income" (BRI) growth factor.
"For each subsequent Salary Cap Year: (A) for each [NBA Cup] Player on the Team that wins the [NBA Cup] Finals Game, an amount equal to $500,000 multiplied by the "BRI Growth Factor" for such Salary Cap Year; (B) for each IST Player on the Team that loses the IST Finals Game, an amount equal to $200,000 multiplied by the BRI Growth Factor for such Salary Cap Year; (C) for each IST Player on a Team that loses an IST Semifinals game, $100,000 multiplied by the BRI Growth Factor for such Salary Cap Year; and (D) for each IST Player on a Team that loses an IST Quarterfinals game, $50,000 multiplied by the BRI Growth Factor for such Salary Cap Year."
The BRI growth factor, according to the CBA, is "a fraction, the numerator of which is BRI for the immediately preceding Salary Cap Year and the denominator of which is BRI for the 2022-23 Salary Cap Year; provided, however, that the NBA and Players Association may agree to reduce the BRI Growth Factor for one (1) or more Salary Cap Years to a smaller fraction with value of no less than one (1)."
So basically, there was a nearly 3% increase in prize money across the board for the NBA Cup, a figure which should continue to rise each season as the league continues to make more money.
For players on two-way or 10-day contracts, the CBA states they "shall count as one-half of a knockout stage game for which such player was on the Team's Active or Inactive List." That means a player on a two-way contract on the team that wins the NBA Cup title in 2024 would receive $257,485.50 instead of the $514,971.