The NBA officially reveals a grouping format for a new championship this season

Set 1: Philadelphia Seventy SixersAnd Cleveland CavaliersAnd Atlanta HawksAnd Indiana PacersAnd Detroit Pistons

Group 2: Milwaukee BucksAnd New York KnicksAnd Miami HeatAnd Washington WizardsAnd Charlotte Hornets

Group 3: Boston CelticsAnd Brooklyn NetworksAnd Toronto RaptorsAnd Chicago BullsAnd Orlando Magic

Group 4: Memphis GrizzliesAnd Phoenix SunsAnd Los Angeles LakersAnd Utah JazzAnd Portland Trail Blazers

Group 5: Denver NuggetsAnd Los Angeles ClippersAnd New Orleans PelicansAnd Dallas MavericksAnd Houston Rockets

Group 6: Sacramento KingsAnd Golden State WarriorsAnd Minnesota TimberwolvesAnd Oklahoma City ThunderAnd San Antonio Spurs

To create the groups, the NBA used a World Cup-style lottery process, dividing each conference into five bowls that were separated by the previous year’s regular season standings. Pot 1 featured teams that finished first through third—so, in the East, the Bucks, Celtics, and 76ers; followed by the 4-6 teams that landed in Pot 2 (Cavaliers, Knicks, and Nets); Teams 7-9 land in Pot 3 (Hawks, Heat, Raptors); Teams 10-12 go down to Pot 4 (Bulls, Pacers, Wizards); and teams 13-15 land in Pot 5 (Magic, Hornets, Pistons).

From there, one team is randomly selected from each of the five pots to create what the league hopes will be three identical pools of teams to compete against each other.

The group play portion of the tournament will consist of four matches – one against each of the four other teams in each group – which will be played on seven dates during the month of November. This year, those dates will be November 3, 10, 14, 17, 21, 24, and 28 — a combination of four Fridays and three Tuesdays.

Evan Wash, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball strategy and analytics and the key person behind creating the mid-season tournament, said the league will do everything it can to have two back-to-back games as part of those team games held at a minimum.

“The commitment we made to the teams is that we will do everything we can to avoid group matches being the second night out of two back-to-back matches, and it is probably impossible to avoid some of them being the first night back-to-back,” Wash said. It makes sense for us to make a schedule where they are not on the first or second night [any] Back to back. So the commitment we hope to make at this point is to avoid second nights of parity.”

From there, the winner of each group will advance to the knockout round, along with the highest placed team not winning a group in each conference. These teams will then play their quarterfinal games on Monday, December 4 and Tuesday, December 5 at the higher seeded teams, with the four teams that win those matches advancing to the semifinals on Thursday, December 7 at T-Mobile Arena, followed by the championship game on Saturday, December 9.

Until the title game, the East-West teams will play opponents only in their conference, setting up an East-West showdown in the Championship Game in the same format as the NBA Playoffs.

During the knockout rounds on days when the championship games are not scheduled in the season (December 6 and December 8), the 22 teams that did not qualify for the knockout rounds will play two matches in the regular season.

Players will receive $500,000 for being on the team that wins the NBA Cup, players on a team that loses in the title game will receive $200,000 each, each semifinalist will receive $100,000 and the losing quarterfinalists will take home $50,000. dollar. But while other incentives were discussed to give players and teams greater incentives to invest in the tournament, such as guaranteeing a playoff winner, the league ultimately chose not to take any such actions.

As part of the process, the league readily acknowledges that it will take time for people to adjust to having a new trophy to win, and a new competition as part of the NBA season, but believes that over time it will become an integral part of the NBA calendar.

“Not everyone will buy right away,” said Joe Dumars, executive vice president of basketball operations for the NBA. “So it can’t be the target that everyone will buy from day one.

“These things take time. And I think, with time, I think you can build this and people can really get into it.”

As for deciding to call the championship trophy the “NBA Cup” — as opposed to, say, naming it after former NBA Commissioner David Stern as some had predicted — Wash said the league considered a variety of different names for both the championship itself and the trophy. tournament before deciding to use the basic descriptors for each.

However, he admitted that both could change in the future – especially if sponsors get involved.

“I would say we had an intense exercise in naming the championship the same as well as the trophy because they don’t have to be the same thing, right?” he said snitch “Ultimately, we decided that at least in the early years, you’re trying to create something from scratch and build understanding. And so it was the literal terms that we felt most resonated with the market and we realize that might come with some criticism that they lack creativity and are too simple. But we do. We felt this was the best way to build a fan understanding of what this is about.

“This is a championship in season and the winner is going to lift a trophy — the NBA Cup. Now, can these names change over time? Yes. Can they have entitlements attached to them as we build partners around this? Yes, absolutely. So I think those things It’s going to change, but for now, it’s kind of the basic characterization that we thought was the right way to get this off the ground.”