The group stage of the 2024 NBA Cup concludes Tuesday night, and it will be a race to the finish line to figure out which teams will qualify for the knockout round. Only the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets and Atlanta Hawks have clinched spots in the knockout stage so far, as five spots in the eight-team knockout bracket are still up for grabs, including the wild-card spots in both conferences.
There's an endless amount of tiebreakers that will need to be calculated based on how Tuesday night's games finish, but when that's all settled we'll move our focus to the knockout stage, which starts next week with the quarterfinals on Dec. 10 and 11. From there, the NBA Cup moves on to the semifinals, which will be played in Las Vegas on Dec. 14 followed by the championship game on Dec. 17.
Players on teams that make the quarterfinals will receive monetary compensation, but there's a major difference in what players will receive if they win 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
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.