2024 NBA Cup

2024 NBA Cup
Tournament information
Location	Local NBA cities (group stage and quarterfinals); Las Vegas Strip (semifinals and championship game);
Date	November 12 – December 17, 2024
Venue(s)	Local NBA arenas (group stage and quarterfinals); T-Mobile Arena (semifinals and championship game);
Teams	30
Purse	See prize money
	← 2023 (NBA In-Season Tournament)

The 2024 NBA Cup (known as the Emirates NBA Cup for sponsorship reasons) is an upcoming multi-stage basketball tournament that will be played during the 2024–25 NBA season. It will be the second edition of the NBA Cup, then under the working name NBA In-Season Tournament. All 30 teams participate, each playing four regular season games that count towards the tournament's group stage standings. All games in the knockout round, except for the championship game, also count towards the regular season standings. The tournament's semifinals and championship game will be played at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip. The Los Angeles Lakers are the defending champions.

Format

The tournament's format is similar to in-season, multi-stage tournaments in European soccer.^[1]

In the group stage, each conference was divided into three groups with five teams each, for a total of six groups. Regular season games played on Tuesdays and Fridays between November 12 and December 3 are counted in the regular season standings and the NBA Cup standings.^[2] Each team plays one game against each of the other teams in its group, for a total of four games (two at home and two on the road).^[1]

If two or more teams in a group have equal records upon completion of group play, the following tiebreakers are applied in this order:^[1]

Head-to-head record in the group stage
Point differential in the group stage (excluding overtime)^[3]
Total points scored in the group stage (excluding overtime)
Regular season record from the 2023–24 regular season
Random drawing

Note: Overtime scoring will not count towards the point differential and total points tiebreakers in the Emirates NBA Cup. A team's point differential will be “0” in Group Play games that go to overtime, and a team's total points scored will exclude points scored in overtime.

Each group's winner then advances to the knockout stage, as does one wild card from each conference—the group runner-up with the best group stage record. The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament. Quarterfinal games will be played in local NBA markets on December 10 and 11, with the teams with the top two group stage records in each conference hosting, and the best team in group-play games would host the wild-card team. The semifinals will be played on December 14, and the championship on December 17. The final two rounds will be played at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip.^[1]

Quarterfinal and semifinal games count as regular season games, affecting teams' positions in league standings, but the championship game does not. Statistics from the championship game are also not counted in regular season totals.^[1]

To balance the regular season, the four teams that lose in the quarterfinals will play one additional game on December 12, 13, 15 or 16, against each other in the same conference.^[1]

While the knockout stage is played, the 22 teams that do not qualify for the knockout stage each play two additional regular season games, one home and one away, to complete each team's 82 game regular season schedule. Among these 22 total matchups, 20 are intra-conference games, with an attempt by the league to schedule as many pairs of teams that were originally scheduled to only play each other three times during the regular season. The other two matchups are interconference games, as there is an odd number of teams in each conference (11). These two interconference matchups will feature four of the six teams that finished last in their respective group.^[1]

Prize money

Players on teams advancing to the knockout stage will receive prize money as follows:^[4]

Players on teams that lose in the quarterfinals: $50,000 each
Players on teams that lose in the semifinals: $100,000 each
Players on the tournament runner-up team: $200,000 each
Players on the tournament championship team: $500,000 each

Draw

Pots

Teams were allocated into five pots per conference based on the 2023–24 regular season standings. Pot 1 contained the teams with the top three regular season records in each conference, while Pot 2 contained the teams with the fourth- to sixth-best records and so forth, concluding with Pot 5, which contained the teams with the bottom three (thirteenth through fifteenth) records.^[1]^[5]

Eastern Conference in the 2024 NBA Cup
Pot	#	Team	Record
Pot	#	Team	W	L
1	1	Boston Celtics	64	18
	2	New York Knicks	50	32
	3	Milwaukee Bucks	49	33
2	4	Cleveland Cavaliers	48	34
	5	Orlando Magic	47	35
	6	Indiana Pacers	47	35
3	7	Philadelphia 76ers	47	35
	8	Miami Heat	46	36
	9	Chicago Bulls	39	43
4	10	Atlanta Hawks	36	46
	11	Brooklyn Nets	32	50
	12	Toronto Raptors	25	57
5	13	Charlotte Hornets	21	61
	14	Washington Wizards	15	67
	15	Detroit Pistons	14	68

Western Conference in the 2024 NBA Cup
Pot	#	Team	Record
Pot	#	Team	W	L
1	1	Oklahoma City Thunder	57	25
	2	Denver Nuggets	57	25
	3	Minnesota Timberwolves	56	26
2	4	Los Angeles Clippers	51	31
	5	Dallas Mavericks	50	32
	6	Phoenix Suns	49	33
3	7	New Orleans Pelicans	49	33
	8	Los Angeles Lakers	47	35
	9	Sacramento Kings	46	36
4	10	Golden State Warriors	46	36
	11	Houston Rockets	41	41
	12	Utah Jazz	31	51
5	13	Memphis Grizzlies	27	55
	14	San Antonio Spurs	22	60
	15	Portland Trail Blazers	21	61

Draw results

The initial groups were revealed during the tournament announcement on July 12, 2024.^[6]^[7]

Eastern Conference
Group A	Group B	Group C
New York Knicks (2) Orlando Magic (5) Philadelphia 76ers (7) Brooklyn Nets (11) Charlotte Hornets (13)	Milwaukee Bucks (3) Indiana Pacers (6) Miami Heat (8) Toronto Raptors (12) Detroit Pistons (15)	Boston Celtics (1) Cleveland Cavaliers (4) Chicago Bulls (9) Atlanta Hawks (10) Washington Wizards (14)

Western Conference
Group A	Group B	Group C
Minnesota Timberwolves (3) Los Angeles Clippers (4) Sacramento Kings (9) Houston Rockets (11) Portland Trail Blazers (15)	Oklahoma City Thunder (1) Phoenix Suns (6) Los Angeles Lakers (8) Utah Jazz (12) San Antonio Spurs (14)	Denver Nuggets (2) Dallas Mavericks (5) New Orleans Pelicans (7) Golden State Warriors (10) Memphis Grizzlies (13)

Group stage

East group A

Pos	Team	Qualification
1	New York Knicks	Advance to knockout stage
2	Orlando Magic	Possible knockout stage based on ranking
3	Philadelphia 76ers
4	Brooklyn Nets
5	Charlotte Hornets

First game(s) will be played: November 12, 2024. Source: NBA
Rules for classification: Tiebreakers

Games

Note: Times are Eastern Time (UTC−4 or UTC−5) as listed by the NBA. If the venue is located in a different time zone, the local time is also given.

NBA League Pass

November 12
7:00 p.m.

Format

Prize money

Draw

Pots

Draw results

Group stage

East group A

East group B

East group C

West group A

West group B

West group C

Ranking of second-placed teams

Eastern Conference

Western Conference

Knockout stage

Bracket

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Championship game

Media coverage

References

External links