Opening night of the NBA season isn’t until October, but teams are already preparing for the second iteration of the league’s midseason tournament.
On Tuesday, the NBA released the groups and schedules for the second annual NBA Cup, also known as the in-season or midseason tournament.
Like tournaments in other sports, namely soccer, the NBA Cup gives teams something else to play for during the doldrums of a long regular season and gives them the opportunity to add additional hardware to their trophy chase — there’s a cash prize, too.
If you’re unfamiliar with the format, the NBA Cup works like this: each of the 30 NBA teams are separated into six groups, three for each conference.
Members of each group play each other on Tuesdays and Fridays with one team ultimately being crowned the winner of their group and advancing to the next round. One “wildcard” team from each conference also advances.
In the quarterfinals, the eight remaining teams will play in a single-elimination tournament, advancing to the semifinals and eventually the tournament final, both of which take place in Las Vegas.
Players on teams that make it deep into the tournament receive cash prizes — the winners get the most — as well as the NBA Cup, which is sponsored by Emirates for the 2024 tournament and beyond.
The bulk of the group stage will take place in November and both Los Angeles teams have been informed of their schedules for this year’s midseason tournament.
For the Los Angeles Lakers, the defending champions of the NBA Cup, having won the inaugural tournament last year, they’ll face some future hall-of-famers in the group stage, as well as at least once ascending star.
On Friday, Nov. 15, the Lakers will travel to San Antonio to take on the Spurs and the reigning NBA Rookie of the Year, and Paris Olympics star, Victor Wembenyama.
The following week, on Nov. 19, the Lakers will host Lauri Markkanen and the Utah Jazz at the Crypto.com Arena.
A week after that, LeBron James and Anthony Davis will travel to Arizona for a showdown with their Olympic gold medal-winning teammates Kevin Durant and Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns.
The Lakers will close out group play when they host the Oklahoma City Thunder and first-team All NBA guard Shae Gilgeous-Alexander on Friday, Nov. 29.
The Lakers’ former arena-sharing rivals the Los Angeles Clippers will also kick off group play in the NBA Cup on Nov. 15, traveling to Houston for a showdown with the Rockets.
The Clippers will host their first NBA Cup game at the Intuit Dome on Friday, Nov. 22 as they welcome their Pacific Division rivals the Sacramento Kings.
A week later, they’ll travel to the Twin Cities to take on Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Clippers’ final NBA Cup game in the group stage will be a home game against Anfernee Simons and the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday, Dec. 3.
If neither team advances out of the group stage, they’ll return to their regular season schedule, competing against the other teams who were eliminated. All games in the group stage up to the semifinals will count as part of each team’s regular season record. The two teams that square off in the NBA Cup final will technically have to play an additional game in their 82-game regular season schedule.
