\n<\/p>\n
Intended to add more importance to the earlier part of the season, the NBA Cup is a shorter format compared to its regular 82-game league season.<\/p>\n
“There was an opportunity to grow the league through additional competitions,” Evan Wasch, the NBA’s executive vice-president of basketball strategy and analytics told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“If you look around the world, there’s so many examples out there where there is more than one thing for teams to win.<\/p>\n
“We felt that it was an untapped opportunity. Not necessarily a need for us, but just something that would really grow the game.”<\/p>\n
The 30 NBA sides were split into six regionalised groups of five teams.<\/p>\n
After playing the other sides in their group once, the top team from the six pools advanced to the quarter-finals alongside the best second-best side from both the Eastern and Western conferences.<\/p>\n
Quarter-finals and semi-finals were played regionally, with the best side from each conference going forward to the final.<\/p>\n
“It’s basically a World Cup format with five teams in a group instead of four and eight teams advancing,” said Wasch on the format. <\/p>\n
“A lot of the elements look very similar to international football. There’s not a lot of difference with what has been done, except building it into our season. <\/p>\n
“It’s a pretty close one-to-one mapping.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n