Tim Bontemps | ESPN July 8, 2023, 8:11 pm Reading: 5 minutes.
LAS VEGAS — The NBA has officially revealed the new season’s championship, and NBA Cup teams will claim victories, in the Summer League on Saturday afternoon. The event is the culmination of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s multi-year vision to bring European Cup-style competition to the league.
“This is a concept that has been in the league office for about 15 years,” Silver said on a special “NBA Today” episode of “NBA Con” as part of the league’s annual meeting in Las Vegas. “We thought it was the perfect opportunity for a world-class league like the NBA, and it fits our game perfectly.
“New traditions take time. But, across all sports, we’re seeing new innovations, and now it’s time for this championship of the NBA season.” As part of Saturday’s announcement, the league also revealed the six groups of five teams, three made up of teams from the Eastern Conference and three made up of Western Conference opponents, that will make up the group stage of the tournament:
Set 1: Philadelphia Seventy-Six AND Cleveland Knights AND Atlanta Falcons AND Indiana Pacers AND Detroit Pistons
Group 2: Milwaukee BucksE New York KnicksE Miami HeatE Washington WizardsE Charlotte Hornets
Group 3: Boston Celtics AND Brooklyn Nets AND Toronto Raptor AND Chicago Bulls AND Magic of Orlando
Group D: Memphis Grizzlies, Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Lakers, Utah Jazz, Portland Trail Blazers.
Fifth Team: Denver Nuggets & Los Angeles Clippers & New Orleans Pelicans & Dallas Maverick & Houston Rockets
Group 6: Sacramento KingE Golden State WarriorsE Minnesota TimberwolvesE Oklahoma City ThunderE San Antonio Spurs
Adam Silver, during a meeting with NBA referees.Photo: Getty
To create the groups, the NBA used a World Cup-style lottery process, dividing each conference into five separate bowls from last year’s regular season order. Pot 1 featured the first through third place teams, namely in the East, Bucks, Celtics, and 76ers, followed by the 4-6 relegated teams in Pot 2 (Cavaliers, Knicks, and Nets); Teams 7-9 finish in Pot 3 (Hawks, Heat, Raptors); Teams 10-12 go down to Pot 4 (Bulls, Pacers, Wizards); and teams 13-15 land in Pot 5 (Magic, Hornets, Pistons).
From there, one team is randomly selected from each of the five pots to create what the league hopes will be three identical pools of teams to compete against each other.
The group play portion of the tournament will consist of four matches, one against each of the other four teams in each group, on seven dates throughout November. This year, those dates will be November 3, 10, 14, 17, 21, 24 and 28, which is a combination of four Fridays and three Tuesdays.
Evan Wash, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball strategy and analysis and a key person behind the creation of the midseason tournament, said the league will do everything possible to hold back-to-back games as part of those team games that happen. from the minimum.
“The commitment we have made to the teams is that we will do everything we can to avoid group matches being second nights in a row, and it will probably be impossible to prevent some of them being first nights in a row.” They’ve turned their backs,” said the snitch. Perhaps it is not feasible for us to bid not the first or second night of [cualquiera] Come back. So the compromise we hope to reach at this point is to avoid second nights in a row. . “
From there, the winner of each bracket will advance to the round of 16, along with the highest ranked team that does not win a bracket in each conference. Those teams will then play their quarterfinal matches on Monday, December 4 and Tuesday, December 5 in the top-ranked teams, with the four teams that won those matches advancing to the semifinals on Thursday, December 7 at the T-Mobile Arena. . The championship match will follow on Saturday 9 December.
Until the title game, the East and West teams will only play opponents in their conference, setting up an East-West matchup in the Championship Game in the same format as the NBA playoffs.
Players will receive $500,000 for being on the team that wins the NBA Cup, players on the losing team in the title game will each receive $200,000, players on losing teams in the semifinals will receive $100,000 each, and players on losing teams in the quarterfinals will receive $100,000 each. dollars. All. $50,000 home. But while other incentives to give players and teams more incentive to invest in the tournament were discussed, such as guaranteeing a place for the winner of a play-off match, the league ultimately chose not to take such steps.
As part of this process, the league readily acknowledges that it will take some time for people to get used to having a new trophy to win and a new competition as part of the NBA season, but believes that over time it will become part of it. Part of the NBA calendar.
“Not everyone is going to buy right away,” said Joe Dumars, executive vice president of basketball operations for the NBA. So that couldn’t be the point.
Everyone will buy from day one.
“These things take time. And I think over time, I think you can build that and people can really participate.”
Regarding the decision to call the championship trophy the “NBA Cup,” rather than, say, naming it after former NBA commissioner David Stern, as some expected, Wasch said the league was considering a variety of names. . different for both the tournament itself and the tournament cup before deciding to go with the basic descriptions of each.
However, he admitted that both could change in the future, especially if sponsors get involved.
“I would say we had an intense exercise in naming both the league and the cup because they don’t have to be the same, do they?” said spy “Eventually, we decided, at least in the early years, that you were trying to create something from scratch and build understanding. So the literal terms we felt were the most resonant in the market and we realize they might come with some criticism that they lack creativity and are quite basic but we felt this was the best way to get the fans to understand what it is .
“This is a seasonal tournament and the winner will lift one trophy: the NBA Cup. Now, can those names change over time? Yes. Can they have rights to them as we build partners around that? Yes, absolutely. So I think those things will change, “But for now, the kind of basic descriptions that we thought were the right way to get out of the way.”
2023-07-09 01:32:06
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