A new voice on the NBA Cup
You know by now what the curmudgeonly publisher here thinks about the NBA's in-season tournament. Let's get Jake Fischer's perspective and intel about the event's present and future on this Cup Friday
NEW YORK — From the beginning and through the Dec. 17 final of this season's NBA Cup in Las Vegas, this in-season tournament has hinged on international flavor. Commissioner Adam Silver has often suggested that the NBA took a page from European soccer by aiming to mirror the long tradition of the-other-football's in-season competitions like the FA Cup. The new title sponsor for the newly dubbed NBA Cup, back for its second run with eight more games of group play on this Cup Friday, is none other than Emirates, the Dubai-based airline which markets the largest of the Middle East.
"We hope we can contribute in a small way to spread basketball passion," Thierry Aucoc, Emirates' senior vice president of commercial operations. said on a recent Tuesday afternoon. Silver stood just a few paces out of camera range. The golden NBA Cup trophy was propped to Aucoc's right, behind a black backdrop inside the airline’s JFK lounge, following my guided stroll through Terminal 4.
When it was the commissioner's turn to speak, Silver beamed proudly. Outside the window, an Airbus A380 was wrapped in NBA paint and logos, its cabin flush with basketball-themed decor. "Among all the honors that the NBA has enjoyed, to have our own plane is one of the most special," Silver said. There was a line of selfies, where Silver kept posing with influencers who flew alongside Lakers legend James Worthy on that very plane, all accompanying the NBA Cup trophy on a 13-hour journey to usher basketball's sponsored answer to the Olympic torch Stateside. Then Silver, Aucoc, Worthy and the actual flight crew from the flight walked onto the tarmac and grinned for more pictures.
It's not hard to believe a decade ago, when Silver’s office first began conceptualizing ways of livening up the NBA calendar, that one early idea for the NBA Cup would have featured all 30 teams, plus two additional European clubs, according to league sources, brought together for a single-elimination tournament. Think half of the traditional 64-team (apologies, Dayton) March Madness formula. That would've certainly addressed one constant criticism lodged by a certain older scribe who operates this Substack. The NBA's hopes, in such a scenario, would have been to draw name-brand, power programs like Real Madrid or Barcelona, sources said, although it seemed few overseas teams would be willing to essentially pause their seasons without compensatory benefit.
And that was just one proposal on the league's long list of half-baked ideas.
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