The NBA Cup is about to award its third champion Tuesday evening after a showdown between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs. Both teams are top-five-seeded teams in their respective conferences, and the clash in Las Vegas should be an exciting one.
That said, there are still many who follow the NBA who don't give the NBA Cup the credit it deserves. No, it will never rival the playoffs or a championship finals, but that was never the intent of the tournament from its berth. The intent was to inject a higher quality of basketball mid-season and resemble a playoff atmosphere to get the regular season going.
Raising the NBA Cup will likely always have scoffers brushing the achievement off as unimportant. This was the case when the Los Angeles Lakers captured the NBA's first-ever tournament win three seasons ago. So, while many in outside NBA circles may still wave off the NBA Cup, there are many legendary players who actually played the game, who welcome the tournament with open arms.
NBA Cup has support within the legend community like former Miami Heat star, Dwayne Wade
Dwyane Wade never had an opportunity to compete in the NBA Cup, but he's given every indication that he would have liked the chance, had the league introduced the tournament years ago. Of course, it's not only retired players who have voiced their support for the mid-season event; current stars have also since it kicked off.
Wade, however, is one of the newest voices on NBA broadcast television, working alongside his Amazon colleagues, including Ian Eagle and Stan Van Gundy. Wade is also one of the most respected voices in the NBA, and as a Hall of Fame legend of the Miami Heat, people tend to listen to voices like his more intently.
During the Western Conference semifinal game between the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder last week, the Heat champion revelled in the on-court atmosphere these NBA Cup games produce. Suffice to say that Wade has been impressed for a while now, and these past comments speak to that, where he praised the event for its impact across the league.
The intensity of those games just means more than a regular game on a Tuesday or a Friday, " Wade said. "It means a little bit more when you playing for something, right? Not just a game to win or lose, you actually playing for something to get you to a place where you can hold that trophy. We all want to hold trophies up...this is one of the best things the NBA has done of implementing something that is a little unorthodox, a little different for our game."
Wade is right about one thing: to have to put extra work into lifting up a trophy is something most, if not all, professional sports competitors would jump at. Whether the NBA Cup and its winner include a wave of momentum for the remainder of the season is another thing entirely, though.
In the 2023-24 season — the NBA Cup's maiden voyage — the Lakers won the tournament, but fell out of the postseason after the first round. The following year, the Milwaukee Bucks won the cup, but they too lost in the first round of the playoffs. So far, an NBA Cup championship hasn't translated into an NBA championship, never mind a deep playoff run.
The Knicks and Spurs have a chance to shift that narrative this season, beginning Tuesday night. As for Wade's Heat, they'll have to wait until next season to get another crack at the mid-season trophy. Besides, given how their December has gone thus far, they should be focusing on improvement above all else.