Author: Monojit Mandal
NBA 2K24 Summer League saw the official debut of the long-awaited competition organized by the NBA, as well as the coveted NBA Cup that will be awarded to the winning club. This historic event fulfills NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s long-held dream of establishing a European Cup-style tournament for the league. The announcement, made on Saturday, also revealed the format of the tournament’s six groups, each with five teams. These are divided equally between the Eastern and Western Conferences.
- Group 1: Philadelphia, Cleveland, Atlanta, Indiana, Detroit.
- Group 2: Milwaukee, New York, Miami, Washington, Charlotte.
- Group 3: Boston, Brooklyn, Toronto, Chicago, Orlando.
- Group 4: Memphis, Phoenix, Lakers, Utah, Portland.
- Group 5: Denver, Clippers, New Orleans, Dallas, Houston.
- Group 6: Sacramento, Golden State, Minnesota, Oklahoma, San Antonio.
The NBA used a draw technique inspired by the World Cup to establish the groupings. Based on the regular season standings from the previous season, each conference was separated into five pots. Pot 1 contained the top three teams from each conference, including the Bucks, Celtics and 76ers in the East, and the Cavaliers, Knicks and Nets in Pot 2. The remaining pots included teams finishing seventh to ninth (Pot 3), tenth to twelfth (Pot 4) and thirteenth to fifteenth (Pot 5). To generate well-matched groupings for the competition, one team was drawn at random from each pot.
During the group stage, each team will play four games against the other four teams in their assigned group. These matches will take place on seven different dates in November, including November 3, 10, 14, 17, 21, 24 and 28, which are on Fridays and Tuesdays. Evan Wasch, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball strategy and analytics and one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the tournament, said that the league intends to limit back-to-back games during the group stage.
After the group stage, the winner of each group will advance to the knockout stage, along with the best-placed team from each conference that didn’t win a group. The highest-ranked clubs will host the quarter-final matches on December 4 and 5. The four teams that advance through the quarter-finals will compete in the semi-finals on December 7 at the T-Mobile Arena. Finally, on December 9, the long-awaited championship match will determine the final winner.
The teams will only face opponents from their respective conferences, following the same structure as the NBA playoffs. Meanwhile, during the days off from the knockout phase, December 6-8, the 22 clubs that didn’t qualify for the knockout phase will play two regular season matches each.
In terms of incentives, the winning club will receive a bonus of $ 500,000, while the runner-up in the final will receive $ 200,000. In addition, the players from the winning semi-final teams will receive $100,000 each, while those from the losing quarter-final teams will receive $50,000. Although other incentives, such as guaranteeing the tournament champion a place in the playoffs, were discussed, the league ultimately chose not to impose such measures.
The main dates of the tournament include the start of group play on November 3, the semi-finals on December 7 and the long-awaited final battle on December 9. The NBA’s season-long tournament promises to bring plenty of action and an extra degree of excitement for players and spectators as they witness the league’s historic foray into a new era of basketball competition.