The NBA's (still mostly empty) Cup

It might be a full-fledged Cup competition someday ... but Tuesday's return of the In-Season Tournament (now officially the Emirates NBA Cup) reminds us that we're still a long way off

Klay Thompson plays against the Golden State Warriors for the first time Tuesday night after winning four championships with them.

Also Tuesday night: Joel Embiid is scheduled to make his season debut for the Philadelphia 76ers.

The start of this season's In-Season Tournament — now officially known as the Emirates NBA Cup — is thus guaranteed to be a newsy one. Those are both must-see games.

However ...

We would care about those games under any circumstances. Those really aren't Cuppy justifications for hyping up the return of the NBA Cup itself.

I wish I were more excited somehow — especially as an irrationally loyal fan of England's Carabao (League) Cup that is a distinct fourth in importance in terms of annual trophies coveted by the most successful soccer clubs in the Premier League. Yet there's no way for me to fake it about an event that, in Year 2, has a better name and some new court designs that appear to have been met with more external approval compared to Year 1 … but otherwise hasn't changed anything that really matters.

🏀 Sixty of the 67 games in the NBA Cup are still regular-season games that are counted twice for "group play" tournament purposes. This aspect of the NBA Cup is simply too anti-tournament to ignore. (To take it a step further: It's 66 of 67 tournament games that are actually regular-season games that get counted twice for tournament purposes, as sagely noted by reader Alejandro Proskauer, but we've focused on the 60 that have already been scheduled — quarterfinal and semifinal matchups that will later become regular-season games are not yet known.)

🏀 The knockout phase that any good tournament needs for drama still doesn't start until the quarterfinal round. (Imagine, for example, if we just had a single-elimination bracket that drew the 30 NBA teams randomly out of a hat and, say, served up a Detroit upset of 12-0 Cleveland? It would create the sort of buzz this format never will.)

(Editor's note: Original e-mailed version of the newsletter incorrectly said the knockout phase starts in the semis. It DOES start in the quarters.)

🏀 The field still features the same old 30 teams we already watch from October to April ... as opposed to Cup competitions all over the world (and even college basketball tournaments all over the country) that organically inject some variety into the proceedings. This thing needs at least two non-NBA teams from somewhere to spice things up.

🏀 Teams from the Western and Leastern Conferences still don't mix — at all — until the championship game in Las Vegas on Dec. 17.

In short ...

It's still not really a tournament, no matter how hard the NBA markets it as such, until we get to the Final Four in Las Vegas.

Cool graphic from the NBA, but I can't help being that annoying stickler who keeps publicly wondering aloud when this thing is going to take on more characteristics of an actual Cup competition.

I know I'll want to go to the semifinals and finals ... but that's honestly only because they are played in Vegas and I love it when work reasons take me to Sin City.

If you are more excited/less curmudgeonly than me and eagerly anticipate the NBA Cup portion of the schedule, I applaud you. Me? I can't pretend. This thing is going to have to get a lot more tournament-like for me to ever buy in.

It is a complete fib to suggest that there is any sort of Cup romance in using a regular-season score in two separate competitions.

And that, sadly, is what 89.6% of the NBA Cup is.

Regular-season games that count twice.

Which is why, with Leastern Conference jabs impossible to stifle these days when you look at the standings every morning, we have to warn you in advance:

Brace for NBA Not A Cup references on NBA Tuesdays and Fridays from your favorite Substack from now through early December.

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Graphic Arts

Three weeks into the season … there are only two teams in the East with winning records (which needed to be captured in photo form for posterity; thank you Basketball Reference):

Three weeks into the season … I could not resist sharing another shameless plug (encouraging you to subscribe to the DLLS Sports homepage on YouTube with a link embedded in this sentence):

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Numbers Game

🏀 14-0

The 12-0 Cavaliers need two more wins to match the 14-0 starts fashioned by Dallas in 2002-03 and Boston in 1957-98. Then Cleveland will be able to say only two NBA teams have started a season better. 

🏀 15-0

Houston started 15-0 in 1993-94 in the Rockets' first of two back-to-back title seasons (which was also my first season on the NBA beat). Then Golden State, of course, went 24-0 to start its famed 73-9 season that failed to end with a title thanks to the historic comeback from 3-1 down in the NBA Finals by LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and the 2015-16 Cavaliers. 

🏀 1,000

This was quite a collab: My fellow Substacker

Tom Haberstroh

and my trusted consultant on all things injuries — In Street Clothes' Jeff Stotts — got together for a Yahoo! Sports piece in which the duo projects that players classified as stars by the NBA's Player Participation Policy are on an early pace to miss more than 1,000 games this season.

🏀 $500,000

One more thing about the NBA Cup: Players on the winning team still collect $500,000 each if their team is crowned champions in Las Vegas on Dec. 17. 

🏀 401

The Pelicans have played 401 regular-season games since selecting Zion Williamson with the No. 1 overall pick in 2019. Williamson has played in just 190 of them ... 47.4%. 

🏀 811

The 76ers will tonight play their 811th regular-season game since selecting Joel Embiid with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. Embiid is scheduled to appear in his 434th game ... 53.5%.

🏀 1978

Chicago's Nikola Vučević is the first Bull to amass at least 200 points and 100 rebounds in the team's first 10 games of the season since Artis Gilmore way back in 1978.

🏀 40-8

The Celtics are 40-8 without Kristaps Porziņģis in uniform when including last season's 21-4 mark during the regular season and 10-2 record in the playoffs. 

🏀 397

One significant reason why the NBA is again considering new formats for the All-Star Game in San Francisco in February: Last year's version resulted in 397 combined points when the East inflicted a 211-186 rout upon the West in Indianapolis. In Monday's This Week In Basketball column we discussed NBA commissioner Adam Silver's recent disclosure that the league is weighing a move to what he described as "not a traditional game format."

🏀 73

There have been 73 previous NBA All-Star Games and the 2024 edition was first in which one team eclipsed the 200-point mark. 

🏀 35

Karl Anthony-Towns, then playing for Minnesota, scored 50 points for the West off the bench ... on 35 shots. 

🏀 168

The East and West also combined to attempt 168 3-pointers in last season's All-Star Game. 

🏀 7

This is a totally Inside Baseball stat ... but it fascinates me as an illustration of the modern media space and seemingly merits a feature story from someone in the marketplace who tracks such trends. Did You Know: There are seven different Mavericks postgame shows on the same night after a game in this era of YouTube-heavy podcasting? That includes the postgame show aired by Mavericks' official TV broadcast team, two local radio stations and four different podcast options for fans who find themselves needing more after the final buzzer ... including the show I contribute to four times weekly from DLLS Sports.