In a transfer to inject some pleasure into its common season, the Nationwide Basketball Affiliation has unveiled its new in-season match.
The NBA Cup is a European cup-style competitors that provides some sizzle to the early season schedule. Gamers on the successful workforce will get $500,000 every.
“This is a concept that has been rumbling around the league office for around 15 years,” Commissioner Adam Silver mentioned on a particular episode of “NBA Today” from “NBA Con” as a part of the league’s annual gathering in Las Vegas. “We thought what an ideal alternative for a world league just like the NBA, and it’s an ideal match for our sport.
“New traditions take time. But, all throughout sports, we are seeing new innovations, and now is the time for this NBA in-season tournament.”
The league unveiled the six five-team teams — three made up of Japanese Convention groups and three made up of Western Convention foes — that will likely be within the group stage of the match:
Group 1: Philadelphia 76ers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks, Indiana Pacers, Detroit Pistons
Group 2: Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks, Miami Warmth, 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 Path Blazers
Group 5: Denver Nuggets, LA Clippers, New Orleans Pelicans, Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets
Group 6: Sacramento Kings, Golden State Warriors, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder, San Antonio Spurs
The groups have been grouped by splitting every convention into 5 pots that have been separated by final 12 months’s regular-season standings. Pot 1 featured the groups that completed first by way of third — so, within the East, the Bucks, Celtics and 76ers; adopted by groups 4-6 touchdown in Pot 2 (Cavaliers, Knicks and Nets); groups 7-9 touchdown in Pot 3 (Hawks, Warmth, Raptors); groups 10-12 touchdown in Pot 4 (Bulls, Pacers and Wizards); and groups 13-15 touchdown in Pot 5 (Magic, Hornets and Pistons).
From there, one workforce was randomly chosen from every of the 5 pots.
The group play portion of the match will consist of 4 video games — one towards every of the opposite 4 groups throughout every group — that can happen on seven dates all through November. This 12 months, these dates will likely be Nov. 3, 10, 14, 17, 21, 24 and 28 — a mix of 4 Fridays and three Tuesdays.
Evan Wasch, the NBA’s govt vice chairman of basketball technique, mentioned that the league goes to strive its finest to have back-to-backs held to a minimal.
“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 mentioned. “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.”
The winner of every group will advance to the knockout spherical, together with the highest-finishing workforce that didn’t win a gaggle in every convention. These groups will then play quarterfinal video games on Dec. 4 and Dec. 5 on the higher-seeded groups, with the 4 groups that win these video games advancing to the semifinals on Dec. 7 at T-Cellular Enviornment in Las Vegas, adopted by the championship sport on Dec. 9.
“Everybody’s not going to buy in right away,” mentioned Joe Dumars, the NBA’s govt vice chairman of basketball operations. “So that may’t be the purpose that everyone’s going to purchase in from day one.
