NBA hopes the Cup will become a cherished tradition during the season

No one knows if the NBA Cup will exist in 30 years.

Heck, no one knows what the world will look like in thirty years, let alone the NBA.

Who would have thought 30 years ago that a player would score 40,000 career points and play at the All-NBA level at almost 40 years old? And after the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, who would have thought that more than thirty years later, the league’s MVP would be won for six consecutive seasons between 2019 and 2024 by a player born outside the United States?

The league’s plans for the NBA Cup are long-term. It changed the name of the “seasonal tournament,” redesigned a trophy and added a title sponsor for the event that started last season.

Investments are being made in the NBA – including a significant promotional campaign with actors Michael Imperioli and Rosario Dawson and NBA stars including Steph Curry; specially designed NBA Cup courts for each team (NBA commissioner Adam Silver is admittedly a fan of the colorful courts); and unique uniforms for home and road games.

The Emirates NBA Cup starts on Tuesday and the competition looks to build on a modicum of success from last season, which ended with the Los Angeles Lakers’ victory over the Indiana Pacers. TV ratings for the NBA Cup Finals averaged 4.58 million viewers and were the most-watched non-Christmas game since February 2018. It helped that it was the Lakers – with LeBron James and Anthony Davis – and an exciting Pacers team led by rising star Tyrese. Haliburton.

As the 67-match event concluded group play and headed to the knockout rounds in the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals, the teams wanted to win. And there’s financial reward, including nearly $515,000 this season for each player on the NBA Cup championship team.

A refresher: The 15 teams from the East were divided into three groups of five and the 15 teams from the West were divided into three groups of five. Teams in the same group play each other once: two games at home, two games on the road on Tuesday and Friday, starting on Tuesday and ending on December 3 in the group.

Four teams from each conference advance to the quarterfinals: the winner of each group plus one wildcard (a team that finished second in its group and won the tiebreaker) from each conference. The semifinals are December 14 and the championship match (winner East vs. winner West) is December 17 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. All games except the title game count toward a team’s overall win-loss record.

The league has made minor adjustments to the NBA Cup, such as excluding overtime scoring from the points differential and total points tiebreakers. And there are intriguing groups: Denver, Dallas, New Orleans, Golden State and Memphis in Group C in the West, and New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Charlotte in Group A in the East.

The NBA aims to create a meaningful event early in the season that can generate interest after the World Series and before Christmas, as the NFL and college football seasons unfold – and with games on nights when there are traditionally few high-profile football games.

Eleven months ago during the NBA Cup Finals, Silver said: “I want to thank all the players in the league and the coaches, obviously the teams, for embracing this new concept. I know it doesn’t come without challenges. There’s no doubt that we’re learning a few things this time around. Overall, we’re pleased with the interest we’ve seen so far this season.”

Traditions don’t happen overnight. Or over the course of two seasons. Now we can make real-time judgments about TV ratings, ticket sales, fan interest and game competition.

But the true measure of NBA Cup success – or lack thereof – will be revealed in ten, fifteen, twenty or thirty years.

Follow Jeff Zillgitt on social media @JeffZillgitt