The Oklahoma City Thunder’s dominant 133-106 win over the Utah Jazz secured their spot in the Knockout Rounds of the inaugural Emirates NBA Cup, but the mood following the victory was unexpectedly subdued. Instead of celebrating their advancement, Thunder players and coaches expressed confusion about the tournament’s formatting and rules, echoing widespread sentiment since the event’s inception.
The in-season tournament, designed to add excitement to the regular season, has been met with mixed reactions from players, coaches, and fans alike. Despite the league’s efforts to simplify the format—including clearly defined group play, point differentials as tiebreakers, and seeding for the Knockout Rounds—the intricacies have left many scratching their heads.
For Oklahoma City, the win was a statement game, especially after a subpar performance against the Rockets in their previous outing. Players like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey helped lead the charge, but even they appeared uncertain about the implications of their win during postgame interviews.
The NBA may have achieved its goal of making the regular season feel more meaningful, but the lingering confusion highlights the growing pains of implementing a new system. As the tournament progresses into the high-stakes Knockout Rounds, the league might need to revisit how it communicates the format to ensure clarity and enthusiasm from all participants.
Thunder perfectly highlight how confusing the Emirates NBA Cup is
Sophomore guard Cason Wallace revealed during his press conference that he “just found out” about how the outcome of Tuesday’s game between the Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs could affect their standing in the tournament’s second round, saying: “I don’t really know much about the [NBA] Cup and how it works.”
Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was similarly honest in his response to whether he’d been following the various circumstances with the other Cup games being played, saying that he hadn’t because “it’s all too confusing.”
These complaints about the tournament’s odd format have some serious merit.
Not only is each conference divided into three separate groups of five clubs, with each team driven to win as many games as possible, but a club’s point differential also influences whether or not it advances.
This last section appears to be the most perplexing to individuals, and it is also something that coach Mark Daigneault despises.
When asked if there was any “temptation” to keep starters on the floor despite having an almost overwhelming lead to “run the score up even more” — after all, point differential matters in the NBA Cup — the Thunder coach responded emphatically no.
He went on to explain why he believes this is one of the tournament’s major problems.
“Number one due to player health. Imagine it’s an NBA Cup game, we’re up 30 points, and I send out a 35-minute player, and God forbid something happens because I’m chasing a point differential. That would be very awful for both the league and the franchise. I dislike the design because it encourages doing so or running up the score on an opponent, which, you know, requires a certain elegance to win. “They’ve created an incentive that turns that on its head,” Daigneault explained.
Daigneault went on to say that if given the chance, he would vote against preserving this point differential in the rulebook, and even offered “maybe quarters” as a method to better split things down, though he confessed, “I’m not sitting in a room thinking about that.”
Regardless of their, and many others’, thoughts on the Emirates NBA Cup, the Thunder are on their way to the Knockout Rounds, which feature eight qualifying teams competing in single-elimination games until a champion is proclaimed.
Cup action will resume on Tuesday, December 10.
