NBA Cup overreactions – Better than the regular season?
As we head toward the semifinals of the second annual NBA Cup in Las Vegas, the format of the tournament makes it easy to overreact.
Unlike a best-of-seven playoff series, which test teams’ endurance and ability to adjust, the NBA Cup’s short group stage (four games) followed by a single-elimination knockout bracket makes it easy for teams such as the Atlanta Hawks to catch fire and advance.
On the flip side, losing teams such as the Golden State Warriors and New York Knicks won’t get an immediate opportunity to atone for their poor performances Wednesday. Meanwhile, several of the league’s top title contenders — including two of the top three teams so far, the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers — will watch the semifinals from home.
To avoid falling victim to recency bias, let’s examine several potential conclusions about this season’s NBA Cup and the format of the tournament as a whole. Are they short-lived overreactions to what’s happening early in the 2024-25 NBA season? Or meaningful trends that might carry on beyond next Tuesday’s championship?
The quality of play in NBA Cup games is higher
It’s exceptionally challenging to measure the quality of play in basketball since statistics are a product of both offense and defense. If they rise equally, no overall change can be seen. Still, evidence shows that NBA Cup games are played with more talent on the court. Because of the point differential tiebreaker, and any extra importance put on advancing in the tournament, coaches are using their top players more frequently.
The top five players in minutes per team during NBA Cup games have averaged 161 minutes, as compared to 159 minutes in other regular-season games played since the start of competition. That went up to 170 minutes per team in the four quarterfinal games, not quite as high as during the 2024 playoffs (an average of 177 minutes per team for the top five players) but closer to that than to a typical November or December game.
Additionally, no team completes a back-to-back in an NBA Cup game, therefore All-Star players were more likely to play heavier minutes in them. The average group-stage game featured players who had combined for 7.0 past All-Star appearances, as compared to 6.4 in other regular-season games during that span. (That went up again to 7.9 in the quarterfinals, though that’s a function of more star-studded teams advancing rather than player availability.)
Combine those two stats and NBA Cup games feature more notable players playing more minutes than other regular-season games — precisely what the league was hoping to see.
Verdict: Not an overreaction
The point-differential tiebreaker is complicating the NBA Cup
This concern emerged after the league published scenarios entering the final night of group play, which accounted for 18 different outcomes in the Western Conference.
A few things are worth noting. First, most of those contingencies related to the winner or loser of games, not the tiebreakers themselves. With nearly one-fifth of all group games played on the final night, it’s inevitable there’s going to be multiple potential outcomes no matter how the league chooses to break ties.
Second, point differential almost exclusively comes into play with the wild-card spots in each conference. The tiebreaker can decide the group winner, but only if the top three (or potentially four) teams all have the same record and each beat the other. If and when the NBA expands to 32 teams, going to four groups in each conference and eliminating the wild card would potentially be a natural solution to this issue.
For now, I find the emphasis on point differential a fun wrinkle. Your mileage might vary, and the league could reward fast-starting teams by breaking group ties in favor of the team with the better overall winning percentage for the season to date, but I don’t think complexity specifically is reason for a change.
Verdict: Overreaction
The Oklahoma City Thunder should be considered top-tier title contenders
As noted, not only do the Thunder have the best record among the teams that advanced to Vegas, they’re the only one of the league’s top three teams so far that reached the quarterfinals. On that stage, Oklahoma City comfortably handled the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday in a rematch of last season’s playoff series loss.
Looking at the full season also paints a rosy picture for the Thunder, who boast an NBA-best plus-12.0 point differential despite not yet having both of their top two centers (Chet Holmgren and newcomer Isaiah Hartenstein) healthy at the same time. Of the 17 teams in NBA history with a differential of plus-12 or better over their first 24 games, eight have won the title, although the rate is a little lower since the ABA-NBA merger (four of 10, 40%).
Early exit from the NBA Cup aside, the defending champion Celtics have given us no reason to question their chances of repeating. Boston’s plus-10 differential is actually slightly better than the same time last season (plus-8.8), and Kristaps Porzingis has looked great since returning ahead of schedule from ankle surgery.
Still, I’m not convinced the difference between the Celtics and the Thunder is quite as large as the gap in their current title odds at ESPN BET: plus-225 for Boston against plus-450 for Oklahoma City, implying the Celtics are substantially more likely to win it all. Projections using ESPN’s Basketball Power Index (BPI) have the Thunder winning the NBA Finals in 28% of simulations, nearly as many as Boston (30%).
We’ve seen the Celtics succeed at the highest level in a way we haven’t yet seen from Oklahoma City. But that memory might slow us from recognizing how much the Thunder have improved with the additions of Hartenstein and Alex Caruso, as well as another season of experience for their young stars.
Verdict: Not an overreaction
The Hawks or Houston Rockets could be this season’s Indiana Pacers
Like Atlanta and Houston, Indiana went from the previous season’s lottery to the NBA Cup semifinals — and, in the Pacers’ case, a loss in the final to the Los Angeles Lakers. With their young players gaining valuable big-game experience, Indiana went on to reach the Eastern Conference finals before being swept by Boston.
A good rule of thumb: Any time people go looking for the next outlier performance, the odds are usually against it. The Pacers’ run last season was remarkable simply because it was improbable right up through the first two games of their second-round playoff series against the Knicks. A lot had to align for Indiana, most notably injuries that sidelined the Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo for the entirety of the postseason, Damian Lillard for part of the first-round series and OG Anunoby for much of the matchup with New York.
It’s realistic for the Hawks or Rockets to win a playoff series, which would qualify as a massive success in itself. Atlanta hasn’t won a series since a similar unexpected run to the 2021 conference finals, and Houston last advanced with James Harden as the team’s star during the 2020 bubble. But making it all the way to the conference finals is a lot to ask. BPI projections show either team doing so just 24% of the time, and even that feels optimistic.
Verdict: Overreaction
Advancing in the NBA Cup will hurt teams going forward
play2:14Steve Kerr blasts refs, storms out of news conference
Warriors coach Steve Kerr doesn’t hold back as he criticizes the referees for a late foul call vs. the Rockets in the NBA Cup quarterfinals.
There are two versions of this theory. The first, which emerged in the wake of the Pacers and Lakers slumping after meeting in the inaugural NBA Cup final, holds that the extra game they played was responsible for their January stumbles.
This year, NBA executives have been grumbling that teams knocked out of the NBA Cup in the group stage such as the Celtics and Cavaliers have been rewarded with easier matchups in the two additional games scheduled for group stage losers. I don’t find either argument persuasive.
The NBA Cup hangover shares some similarities with the “Sports Illustrated cover” and “Madden” jinxes in that much of the effect can be explained by regression to the mean. Both the Lakers and Pacers dramatically outperformed their play in all other games during their run to the final, the kind of thing that’s possible in a short tournament but not indicative of how they should have been expected to play going forward.
In both cases, the “hangover” was short-lived. Indiana lost six of its next seven after the in-season-tournament final before running off a six-game winning streak across December and January. The Lakers rebounded to go 29-14 after dropping a season-low two games below .500 in mid-January. Such fluctuations are common during an 82-game season.
It’s plausible the same elements that lead to better quality of play in NBA Cup games could create some long-term fatigue, but it’s unlikely a major concern. After all, we’ve seen no such effect in the WNBA, where the Commissioner’s Cup final has included the eventual champion three out of four years and each of the past two WNBA Finals has been a Commissioner’s Cup rematch. (One difference: WNBA teams don’t play any single-elimination games before the final.)
As for the scheduling factor, like most such complaints, it’s overblown. Yes, Boston and Cleveland got exceptionally easy draws. Both play one of their extra games against the lowly Washington Wizards and a second against a bottom-10 team by BPI. Remember, though, the Celtics and Cavaliers are likely to beat most any team. BPI estimates the schedule adds about 0.2 expected wins for each team as compared to games of average difficulty. This means they might add one win to their total about every five years by missing out on the knockout rounds.
There is one reasonable fix to benefit teams that reach the NBA Cup final playing an extra game: make the game count in the standings for the winner, meaning they’d automatically have the tiebreaker over any team that finishes with the same record over the other 82 games.
Verdict: Overreaction
The NBA Cup will bolster Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP case
Of the top three contenders for MVP according to ESPN BET odds, Gilgeous-Alexander is the only one playing in Vegas. The Denver Nuggets were eliminated in the group stage in part because Nikola Jokic sat out their first two games for the birth of his son, and Luka Doncic struggled against Oklahoma City’s stout defense in the quarterfinals.
For now, Gilgeous-Alexander outdueling Doncic is a fresh memory. By April, it will inevitably feel distant because of the many twists and turns left in the MVP race. Gilgeous-Alexander might yet surpass Jokic as the favorite after finishing second in the voting behind him last season, but I doubt the NBA Cup will have much to do with it.
Verdict: Overreaction
Source: espn.com