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After previously announcing the dates and groups for its third annual in-season tournament, the NBA today revealed the schedule for the group play portion of the event. The group play stage of the tournament, which is formally known as the Emirates NBA Cup, will begin on October 30 and run through November 27. The group play games will take place on five consecutive Fridays, with a handful of games also played on Tuesday, Nov. 24 and Wednesday, Nov. 25. The NBA has published its schedule by date, as well as its schedule by team. Each Friday will feature a doubleheader on Amazon Prime Video, while NBC/Peacock will nationally broadcast a doubleheader on Nov. 24 and ESPN will air a tripleheader on Nov. 25. The full schedule of nationally televised NBA Cup games, starting with Knicks at Sixers and Lakers at Warriors on Oct. 30, can be found right here.
A stacked East Group B, which consists of the Knicks, Sixers, Cavaliers, Heat, and Pacers, will be the most heavily featured Eastern Conference group in nationally televised broadcasts — five of the 15 NBA Cup games on the national broadcast schedule will be matchups from that group, including three apiece for New York and Philadelphia. The NBA will also nationally televise five matchups from West Group C, which features the Lakers, Warriors, Spurs, Trail Blazers, and Kings. Los Angeles and San Antonio will each get three national broadcasts during group play.
An NBA Cup champion could be headed to the EuroLeague. According to BasketNews sources, Barcelona is a team to watch in the pursuit of Stanley Umude, with the Spanish powerhouse linked to the 27-year-old Nigerian-American wing on the market.
NBA Communications: Group Play games in the Emirates NBA Cup 2026 will take place on "Cup Nights" from Oct. 30 – Nov. 27. Each team will play one game against each of the four opponents in its group. The six group winners and one wild card from each conference will advance to the single-elimination Knockout Rounds. The game and broadcast schedules for Group Play will be announced in August. The home/road teams for Group Play matchups are available below and here: pr.nba.com/wp-content/upl oads/sites/46/2026/06/2026-NBA-Cup-Away-Home-Matrix.pdf
The NBA is going back to college this coming season, bringing the NBA Cup championship game to Butler’s historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Hinkle — one of the oldest arenas in the country — is iconic, and more than fits the billing that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and other league officials were looking for when he said the league was searching for “storied college arenas” to play host to the Cup final.
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Tatum said that the league is “looking for ‘great operators’ who will invest in new stadiums,” adding that there are “only ‘two to three world-class’ basketball arenas in all of Europe.” The NBA is “considering how to intermingle NBA Europe teams with its existing North American teams.” In the short term, Tatum said that NBA Europe teams “could play teams based in the U.S. and Canada in the preseason.” Then, over time, teams across the two leagues “could meet up in the Emirates NBA Cup.”
This team Leon Rose built is the NBA's first to win the Larry O’Brien Trophy and NBA Cup double in the same season. It just beat the Spurs four times in five tries despite spotting a double-digit lead to San Antonio in the first quarter of all five games. And it joins only Toronto in 2018-19, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, as NBA champions with four starters acquired via trade. These Knicks and those Raptors are also the league's only two teams, per Elias, to open a Finals-clinching game with five players it didn't draft.
Get this: The Knicks also posted a blistering 123.0 offensive rating in their two regular-season games against San Antonio, and they torched the Spurs in the NBA Cup championship (which doesn't officially count in the standings). While the Spurs ranked third in defensive efficiency during the regular season, they conceded more points per possession to the Knicks than any of their opponents. This Finals will be decided by San Antonio's ability -- or inability -- to slow the New York juggernaut. The Knicks enter the Finals on an 11-game playoff winning streak and with full confidence they can execute against Wembanyama, the 2026 Defensive Player of the Year.
Josh Hart, in fact, took the comedic route in explaining why there's nothing for the Knicks to glean from that game. “I mean, that was December. I don't think that's really gonna be equivalent to what the atmosphere and energy is going to be like,” Hart said, via SNY. “Technically, that game didn't happen, so I don't think there's anything that we can learn from.”
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Tim Reynolds: Josh Hart, one of the smartest players in the league, was asked today at Knicks practice about what the team can learn from playing the Spurs in the NBA Cup final. "Technically, that game didn't happen," Hart said. (It didn't count in season standings or stats, so he's right.)
In four regular-season games against the Spurs, Chet Holmgren made only 38.7 percent of his shots. He scored just 42 combined points. In the Thunder’s December loss to the Spurs during the NBA Cup, he fared slightly better, with 17 points and seven rebounds — but it still wasn’t as good as Wembanyama’s 22 points and nine rebounds (in only 21 minutes). In this Western Conference finals series, the matchup wasn’t close. Eight points, 13 points, 14 points, 10 points, 16 points, 10 points and, in Game 7, four points. Nearly all of them were forgettable. They don’t tell the entire story — the game is more than putting the ball in the basket — and the Thunder’s willingness to sacrifice self for team is part of what got them one win away from another trip to the NBA Finals.
In February 2024, the NBA announced it had reached a multiyear global marketing partnership with Emirates, naming the company its “Official Global Airline Partner” and the title sponsor of the NBA Cup. Soon after the announcement, Edalat alleges, VanDeWeghe—who had stepped down from his executive vice president role with the NBA in 2021 to become a special advisor—reached out. “You need to look into this,” VanDeWeghe told Edalat, according to Edalat’s attorney. According to the complaint, Edalat’s attorney reached out to the NBA in April 2024 seeking confirmation of Edalat’s compensation. A league lawyer responded that the NBA had “no record” of any agreement with Edalat.
Shams Charania: Magic president Jeff Weltman, who signed a contract extension just before Orlando’s run to the NBA Cup final four, will lead the team's search for the next head coach. Mosley led the Magic to two division titles and three consecutive winning seasons while dealing with a litany of injuries to key starters, particularly over the last two years.