The first look at the 2024-25 NBA season is coming sooner than you think.
The NBA announced it will host the draw to determine the groups for the 2024-25 NBA Cup on Friday:
The Los Angeles Lakers won the inaugural NBA Cup last season, with LeBron James winning tournament MVP.
This year’s format will follow the same one introduced last year. Teams will be broken down into six groups of five, with each conference having three groups. Within the conferences, the teams are separated into tiers of three. Seeds Nos. 1-3 are part of one group; seeds Nos. 4-6 are part of the next and then down the line, with each group consisting of three teams.
This is done to—at least in theory—separate the teams into tiers.
Teams then play a round-robin tournament between their group members, two games each at home and on the road, to determine the group winner.
The winners of the three groups and one “wild card” team advance to the knockout stage, which consists of head-to-head matchups in a winner-moves-on format. Every game besides the NBA Cup championship goes on the team’s regular-season record.
Teams that are eliminated from the NBA Cup will have their regular-season games made up as the tournament goes on.