Yahoo Sports NBA contributing writer Tom Haberstroh and senior NBA writer Dan Devine break down everything you need to know about the 2025 Emirates NBA Cup and give their take on who they think will win. Hear the full conversation on “The Big Number” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
What is the Emirates NBA Cup, and what can we expect here on Friday as we kick things off?
So we’re entering the third iteration of this competition.
The entire 30-team league is split into six different groups, five teams apiece.
There are three West groups, and three East groups.
Everyone in the group plays each other twice, in a round robin format, with two home games, two away games.
Thats the group stage of the competition.
Youre going to have eight teams: six group winners and two wild cards determined by, the head-to-head record in the tiebreakers.
Theres also your point differential.
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This has been the big thing, over the course of the first couple of years.
Our teams run up the score, yes, but theyre also kind of, benefiting from that, because point differential and total points scored are two of the main tiebreakers for determining if you get out of round one and into round two.
So theres incentive to stick around all the way to the end and score as many points as possible if you want to have the chance at advancing in the NBA Cup tournament.
Quarterfinals start on Wednesday, December 10th, then on to Las Vegas for the semifinals and finals; semifinals on Saturday, December 13th, finals on Tuesday, December 16th.
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Yeah, were getting going Halloween night, and its a sprint to Vegas from here.
I hope the winner this year actually celebrates, rather than Giannis last year, where he was like, yeah, this, this, were not gonna pop the champagne; were gonna leave it in the ice bucket, because weve got bigger things we want to achieve this year.
Lets celebrate it.
I want people to get excited for it.
If the players get excited for it, then the fans will get excited for it.
So I want to see, and we know that Giannis is very competitive, uber competitive, and he shows that by winning the NBA Cup and an NBA championship, but I do want to see a little bit more celebration.
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Ive got Denver winning the whole thing.
Over New York.
Thats my pick.
Dan, I know this is a crapshoot what were doing here, but whats your pick?
What you got?
You mentioned the champagne was an issue last year, and I want to see, I think the Thunder are gonna wind up taking this one, because I, need to see how the Thunder have advanced in their opening up a bottle of champagne game.
None of them could open up the bottles of champagne in the locker room after winning the finals.
I think they can do it this time.
I expect the Thunder to continue to march through the league, and now I want to see them actually pop a couple of bottles after the process.
