The NBA Cup Enters Its Fourth Season as the League Faces Injury Woes and Blowouts
The fourth annual NBA Cup began on Friday October 30, 2026, and it concludes with the championship game on December 11 at Hinkle Fieldhouse. As I noted in How Significant is the NBA Cup?, there is not much correlation between winning the NBA Cup and winning the NBA championship. The L.A. Lakers beat the Indiana Pacers 123-109 to win the inaugural NBA Cup in 2023, but then lost in the first round of the playoffs. The Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder to win the 2024 NBA Cup, but matched the Lakers by losing in the first round of the playoffs. Last season, the New York Knicks became the first team to win the NBA Cup and the NBA title in the same season: the Knicks topped the San Antonio Spurs 124-113 to win the 2025 NBA Cup en route to vanquishing the Spurs four games to one in the 2026 NBA Finals.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver implemented the NBA Cup to heighten interest in the regular season by placing a spotlight on four Group Play games played by each team, followed by Knockout Round games played by teams that advance out of Group Play, and culminating in the NBA Cup Championship--the most important game, but paradoxically the only game that does not count in the regular season standings and for which statistics are not included in either regular season or playoff numbers.
My major critique of the NBA Cup is that by placing so much emphasis on NBA Cup games--and by paying bonus money to the players for these games--the NBA is sending the message that non-NBA Cup games are not as important. Devaluing most of the 82 game regular season in favor of a handful of early season NBA Cup games is odd, and it says a lot about the league's multimillionaire players that apparently they will not play as hard as they can unless extra money is on the line above their guaranteed salaries that already provide generational wealth.
This season, another concern affecting not only the NBA Cup but the league as a whole is the high number of serious injuries suffered by key players. The 2025 NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder are currently without the services of Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace, and Chet Holmgren. Williams will probably miss the rest of the season after suffering a dislocated left ankle and fractured left fibula, Wallace is out indefinitely after tearing his left labrum, and Holmgren will miss at least 8-10 weeks because of a torn right patellar tendon. The Thunder quickly went from being a legitimate title contender to a team that is dealing with a significant loss of talent and depth. The Thunder are hurting the worst (no pun intended), but a host of star players will be out for the next several weeks at least, including Anthony Edwards, Kawhi Leonard, Paolo Banchero, Tyrese Haliburton, and Ja Morant.
Last season, up to a third of the NBA's teams were actively tanking, which had the unwelcome effect of creating a large number of blowouts and some inflated statistics--most notably, Bam Adebayo scored 83 points in a game, shattering his previous career-high of 41 and raising justifiable fears that Wilt Chamberlain's single game record of 100 points could be broken by a somewhat above average player having a hot streak while playing against a tanking team. After the NBA removed most of the Draft Lottery incentives for tanking, it was reasonable to hope that this season would have fewer blowouts, but so far it has become commonplace to see teams losing by at least 15 points.
As a result of the rash of injuries and the frequent blowouts, the focus has shifted from anticipating a competitive season culminating in intriguing playoff matchups to wondering why players can't stay healthy and why so many teams are playing so poorly. I am confident that most NBA fans care more about seeing healthy players playing hard in competitive games than they care about seeing the NBA Cup's garish courts and money-fueled hype.
Hopefully, the NBA Cup Championship will be competitive and compelling, but each of the first three NBA Cup Championships have been decided by double digit margins.
Labels: Adam Silver, L.A. Lakers, Milwaukee Bucks, NBA Cup, New York Knicks
posted by David Friedman @ 4:37 PM
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