NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s beloved in-season tournament, the Emirates Cup, kicks off on Friday. The Golden State Warriors don’t have their first game until Nov. 7, a tough road game against the Denver Nuggets, in a round-robin tournament where Group C is all tough games.
When they draw for the World Cup, another multi-stage tournament with group play graduating to single-elimination, the hardest collection of teams is known as the “Group of Death.” The Warriors ended up with the following teams:
- Denver Nuggets: 2023 NBA champions, have world’s best player Nikola Jokic
- Houston Rockets: 52-30 last season, have world’s most online player, Kevin Durant
- San Antonio Spurs: Have NBA blocks champ and world’s best young player, Victor Wembanyama
- Portland Trail Blazers: Already smoked Warriors in one game, have ties to Bonnano and Gambino crime families through Chauncey Billups, as well as Flappy, Pookie, Black Rob, and Albanian Bruce.
That’s a brutal list of opponents. Compare that to Group A in the Eastern Conference, where the Cleveland Cavaliers face off against the Indiana Pacers, Toronto Raptors, and Washington Wizards, who are a combined 2-11 this season, as well as the 2-3 Atlanta Hawks. Honestly, this seems to cast doubt on the integrity of the sacred NBA Cup!
The Warriors made it out of last year’s group only to lose controversially to the Houston Rockets on a loose-ball foul call that Steve Kerr said only an “elementary school” referee would have made. Sure, the Warriors defeated the Rockets in the actual NBA playoffs, but that’s nothing compared to the dramatic world of NBA Cup basketball.
The winners of each group advance to the round of 8, along with one wild-card team determined by best record and point differential, which is why Cup games feature teams running up the score like SEC football teams trying to preserve their poll rankings. The Warriors blew a 24-point lead against the Sacramento Kings in 2023’s Cup by doing just that!
It’s all academic, as the Milwaukee Bucks are going to win the whole thing again. Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham and forward Taurean Prince are both undefeated in NBA Cup play, having won it all last season with Milwaukee and in 2023 with the Los Angeles Lakers. Maybe Ham couldn’t beat the Nuggets in the playoffs, but he could have crushed them if it was a Cup game.
The Lakers got criticized for celebrating with champagne after their win, and went on to need a play-in win before getting swept by the Nuggets. Ham got fired and ended up as an assistant to Doc Rivers in Milwaukee. Perhaps that’s why the Bucks declined to celebrate last season, but they got bounced in the first round of the playoffs anyway. Is there an NBA Cup curse???
Cup games are happening every Friday for the next four weeks, with the league scattering the remaining games throughout the week of Thanksgiving. Golden State won’t play a home Cup game until they host the Blazers Nov. 21, meaning we have to wait three weeks to see what awful eyesore of a special custom court they go with this year. Thankfully, they host the Houston Rockets Nov. 26, so their red court won’t make Kerr feel like he’s been damned to Hades.
Honestly, this should be the NBA’s new slogan. “The Emirates Cup: Feel like you’re descending into the depths of hell!”
