If you follow me on TikTokor Twitter you may already know this about me, but for those who don’t: I am a BIG NBA Cup supporter. We #RespectTheCup in this house. I am also a big soccer (or as I call it, footy) fan, so I was already prone to enjoying these in-season tournaments. When it was announced I actually think that I was one of the only ones in my content creation circle, and certainly the only one in my friend group, to be 100% on board
with the idea.
While Adam Silver has had more missteps in the last few years than I would prefer, he knocked it out of the park with the NBA Cup. As mentioned above, I think that there are ways to improve the tournament, but even in its short existence, it has brought much needed excitement and punch to the early portion of the NBA season.
The Utah Jazz haven’t had the season that any of us would have envisioned, and while starting 1-11 is quite the hole to put ourselves in, the NBA Cup allows us to strive towards a real goal outside of “development.” Even more important than presenting an opportunity to lift up some hardware, getting all the way to the NBA Cup Final would prove that this team is ready to compete one day.
The NBA Cup’s lineage is relatively short, but in its brief history we’ve been able to see some truly great basketball teams compete for the prize. If we take a trip down memory lane, we will notice something almost immediately — the teams that make it are/were threats to the rest of the league.
These weren’t flukes, they were mistakes; if you made it to the Final, you were a team with the aspirations and the roster to play basketball in June.
2023-2024
The inaugural NBA Cup Final was a success by every single metric there is. The game drew 4.58 million viewers between ABC and ESPN, the arena in Las Vegas hosted over 19,000 fans, and the Final featured one of the most exciting teams in the league at the time in the Indiana Pacers and the one of the most well known brands in all of sports in the Los Angeles Lakers, of course led by LeBron James – one of the most recognizable athletes in the world.
While the Lakers weren’t world beaters at this time, being three years removed from a championship, the year prior this squad lost in the Western Conference Finals to the ever dangerous Denver Nuggets. On the other side of the bracket, Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers were the talk of the town. Haliburton was coming off of an All-Star campaign the year prior and the Pacers were just so fun to watch. The matchup also presented an opportunity for there to be a “passing of the torch” moment, but LeBron had other plans.
LeBron finished the game with 24 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 assists, Anthony Davis had a game of a lifetime with 41 points and 20 rebounds, and Austin Reaves chipped in 28 points off the bench in route to a 123-109 victory. LeBron won the inaugural NBA Cup MVP award, the most recognizable NBA team in the world won the inaugural NBA Cup, and the win reiterated that the Los Angeles Lakers were still going to compete at the highest level.
While I was personally rooting for the Indiana Pacers in this game, they gave it everything they had. Haliburton had a cool 20 point and 11 assist performance while Bennedict Mathurin scored 20 off the bench. It wasn’t the result that they (or I) wanted, but it wasn’t long before they proved to be worthy opponents themselves. Lest we forget that the Pacers could have been one catastrophic injury away from lifting up the Larry O’Brien Trophy the following year in the 2024-2025 NBA Season.
2024-2025
The second iteration of the NBA Cup had quite the shoes to fill, but the NBA Cup Final did not disappoint. While there wasn’t a widely recognizable brand in the Final like the Lakers or the Celtics, there was a massive amount of star power.
The Milwaukee Bucks were just a few years removed from a NBA Championship themselves, and Giannis Antetokounmpo was out to prove that they could still compete. Giannis was, and still is, one of the the world’s best players and one of the game’s biggest names. With Damian Lillard at his side, Giannis was out to prove that the Bucks were still threats to come out of the East.
Over in the West, the Oklahoma City Thunder were taking the league by storm. The year prior the team showed up on everyone’s radar after winning 57 games, and this year turned out to be no different. After it was all said and done, the OKC Thunder won 68 games led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who won his first MVP award, and the crew hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy at the end of the year.
Unfortunately for the Thunder, Giannis and the Bucks weren’t ready to lose this night. Giannis lead the way with a 26 point, 19 rebound, and 10 assist triple-double while Damian Lillard scored 23 points and led the Bucks to a 97-81 victory.
The Power of Friendship didn’t help the Thunder on this night, but they did give it their best effort: SGA scored 21, Jalen Williams scored 18,and Isaiah Hartenstein chipped in 16. While they weren’t victorious this night, they did prove to the world that they could compete with anyone in the league. After making it all the way to the NBA Cup Final, they dominated the regular season and defeated the aforementioned Indiana Pacers in 7 games in the NBA Finals.
2025-2026
The third iteration of the NBA Cup was arguably the best of the three. It also combined the best of both worlds from the previous two matchups: mega star power AND a recognizable brand. The New York Knicks are either the second or third (depending on who you ask) most recognizable brand in all of basketball, and for good reason. They don’t call Madison Square Garden “The Mecca of Basketball” for no reason. To top it all off, the Knicks were coming off of a 51 win season and a Conference Finals appearance the previous year, and Jalen Brunson just made the All-NBA 2nd Team.
Out west the San Antonio Spurs were well ahead of schedule with their roster. Stephon Castle just won the Rookie of the Year award the previous year, they drafted Dylan Harper with the #2 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, and Victor Wembanyama had displayed All-World potential despite missing most of the 2024-2025 NBA season with DVT. To a lesser extent compared to the Knicks, the Spurs are also a world wide brand in the basketball realm due to the success of international stars like Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.
With all of the star power and recognizable brands at play, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Amazon Prime Video broadcast averaged over 3 million viewers. What also wasn’t a surprise is that both teams came to play. The Spurs had 7 players in double figures; Wemby and Dylan Harper combined for 39 points off the bench, while Stephon Castle scored 15 points and dropped 12 dimes as a starter. For the Knicks, their Power of Friendship mantra rang true with 7 players scoring in double digits led by Jalen Brunson’s 25 points and OG Anunoby’s 28 points.
The Knicks came out on top 124-113, but this was just the appetizer for the NBA Finals. In the NBA Cup Final both teams proved that they had what it took to compete at the highest level, and then they both powered their way through the NBA Playoffs to meet in the NBA Finals. Unfortunately for The Baseline Bums, the Knicks prevailed again in a 4-1 series win to secure a championship for the first time in 53 years.
Time and time again, the NBA Cup has proven to be the battleground for future competitors and NBA Championship threats. In all three years of existence, the teams competing in the NBA Cup have either already climbed to the mountain top or they were getting ready to take the league by storm. THAT is what we should be striving for. I think after the 1-11 start it would be very difficult to compete for a Playoff spot (I predicted that we would finish 7th) so we should strive to do something more enticing than another year of developing our young talent.
We had higher expectations for our team, but we’ve had a season from hell when it comes to the injury department: Jaren Jackson Jr. is out until the new year, Jusuf Nurkic will be out for at least another two weeks, and Lauri Markkanen will miss at least a month with his hand fracture. Do I think that it will be difficult to win the games necessary to advance in the NBA Cup tournament without them? Absolutely. Do I think that this is a tremendous chance for our young players to prove what they can do? Without a doubt.
The road will be hard, especially after dropping our first NBA Cup game against the Mavericks 112-100, but I don’t think that our chance to win has been snuffed out. Tonight we play the Houston Rockets, and while they are formidable, they are not unbeatable. After that, the Suns and Nuggets are both very volatile. There is a real scenario where the Jazz go 3-1 in group play and earn a spot in the NBA Cup Quarter Finals. Once we get there, it just takes a hot streak to take us all the way to the Promised Land.
Again, without Lauri or JJJ, the burden will be placed on our younger players and luckily we have the firepower to do it. Keyonte George is good for 20 points a game this year, Darryn Peterson became the first teenager in Utah Jazz history to score 20+ points in four straight games, and Ace Bailey has proven that he is invaluable to this team.
The season has been disappointing so far, but there are reasons to be excited and goals to strive for. There is a lot of basketball left to play this year, and I for one am not satisfied with chalking up this year to another development year. Our goal for the rest of the year should be to win the NBA Cup, because if we can do that with a depleted roster, just imagine what we can do in the 2027-2028 season with a fully heathy squad.
How do you feel about the NBA Cup? How do you think the Jazz will fare the rest of the season? Sound off in the comments below!
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