The NBA Cup is the in-season tournament for the league: Each team qualifies for the tournament automatically, and points from the group-stage will still be added to the regular-season points, with the Emirates NBA Cup trophy and a player bonus pool being awarded to the winner. There's no sign-up process nor is there a "wild-card" scramble to gain admittance — the format is a knockout tournament on top of the games that teams had already been scheduled to play.
Whether you're a fan watching the game on a broadcast graphic or interested in betting on it, this guide explains the format, the bracket, current standings, the 2026 schedule, how sportsbooks price it and prize money, and more.
The NBA Cup, aka the Emirates NBA Cup, is a separate single-elimination tournament which takes place during the regular season and not after it. It was new for the 2023-24 season, added to the middle of the 82-game season to provide a second set of stakes to the typically non-dominant stretch of the season.
In short: Every NBA team in the league will automatically compete in the NBA Cup, but it also includes an eight-team bracket that features regular-season games and a final game that is not part of the standings. If you're in need of the skinny, there you have it — below is the meat for how a team actually progresses from group play to the trophy.
The tournament is officially sponsored by Emirates airline, hence the title sponsorship and broadcasts "Emirates NBA Cup"—this is the same tournament and it's shortened to 'the NBA Cup' by fans and news, unless the title is mentioned.
Each team enters in a short group stage and group stage results are directly transferred to a knockout bracket. Let's take a look at the course from start to finish.
The league is divided into 6 groups of 5 teams (3 teams in each conference). There will be 4 group games between each team (2 home and 2 away).
These group games aren't for exhibition purposes and added to the schedule — they are regular-season games that also count toward a team's group standings in the NBA Cup. It is the two-for-one scoring that makes the group stage interesting, even for those who don't follow the Cup.
Group play doesn't yield three winners from each conference. The three group winners in each conference automatically move on with a fourth spot per conference being the single best runner-up by record (the wildcard). This brings each conference to four teams and a total of eight teams to the knockout rounds.
After the field is reduced to eight teams, the NBA Cup is single elimination:
A team's regular season record includes quarterfinal and semifinal victories. The championship game is the only exception on the whole bracket: it is not considered a point in the regular season, not a win/loss record nor the seeding for the playoffs.
The group-stage table is not a ranking for the NBA Cup but the "NBA Cup standings. If the record in the group games is the same within each group, teams are tied within each group, and the net point differential from the four group games is the next tiebreaker, after that full-season record and other NBA tiebreakers. The four-game group stage format means that again, a big win or loss can turn a group's fortunes in one night, as it were.
To get the latest read, check current group standings for the current year for the group you want and directly for the wildcard race.
| Stage | Games per team | Counts toward regular season? | Venue |
| Group stage | 4 | Yes | Home/away, per normal schedule |
| Quarterfinals | 1 | Yes | Higher seed's home arena |
| Semifinals | 1 | Yes | Higher seed's home arena (as of 2026) |
| Championship | 1 | No | Neutral, pre-announced host venue |
Emirates NBA Cup 2026 is played in the group stage from October 30 to November 27, which consists of approximately 60 games spread across the league, followed by knockout quarterfinals and semifinals in early December and the championship game to wrap up the tournament, according to NBA.com. Specific dates are subject to change year to year as the league needs to meet its wider scheduling requirements, and should be treated as a guide only. See the full NBA Cup schedule for how these dates fit into the wider season calendar.
The games in the NBA Cup championship are deliberately not played at either of the two finalists' home arenas, emphasising the fact that it is not a game from the regular season, but rather a stand-alone event. The final was played at T-Mobile Arena, off of the Las Vegas strip in Paradise, Nevada, from 2023-25. The NBA announced the location of the final for 2026, which will be Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, the historic gym that served as the scene for the "Hoosiers" movie. The plan was to keep the final in one city at first but now to rotate the event from venue to venue with some having some basketball history.
Players on the participating teams split a bonus pool tied to how far their team advances, with the largest individual bonuses reserved for the championship roster. In the tournament's debut season, members of the winning team each received a reported $500,000, with smaller bonuses for the runner-up, semifinalists, and quarterfinal losers. The league has adjusted these figures in subsequent seasons, so confirm the current year's exact bonus breakdown before citing a specific number — the tiered structure has stayed consistent even where the dollar amounts have moved.
The NBA Cup is not an NBA Championship board, but rather a futures market for sportsbooks. It also means that a team's chance of winning the Cup can vary significantly from its chance of winning in June — a team that starts out bad but has a good group draw can be long odds to win the Cup while its group odds would be short, and sometimes the opposite can be true as well.
Group stage and knockout games are offered at the same price as any NBA game (moneyline, spread, and total) and the futures market is added on top of those games for the tournament winner, and sometimes for "to win group" and "to reach knockout rounds" props during the group stage. For a fuller breakdown of how these markets are priced, see our current NBA Cup odds guide.
In fact, the official naming rights for the tournament are "Emirates NBA Cup" in it's branding, it's broadcast and on nba.com, though the vast majority of fans continue to refer to it as "the NBA Cup" in their everyday use. Both names are for the same competition.
Watching the NBA Cup is one thing, betting at a legal and reliable site is another. Sports OKBet is created for Filipino bettors who are searching for a site with legal and fast payouts that offers live odds for NBA Cup betting.
The NBA Cup makes the NBA's most drowsy portion of the regular season feel more like a knockout tournament than anything else — the group stage is double the weight, the wild-card round is a wild-card round, and the final is played at a neutral location with a real cash prize. Know the group standings and bracket as they change and if you wish to put a game or a futures wager behind your premise of who is going to break out, then it should be on a site that is actually licensed to operate in the Philippines. Make sure that you are up to date with the latest odds and lines for the NBA Cup on Sports OKBet and place your bets with an operator that is created with Filipino bettors in mind.
The NBA Cup is a 4-game round robin tournament played in-season, where all 30 teams compete for points (and a player bonus pool) that count toward the regular season, followed by a single-elimination knockout bracket with the top finishers advancing to the playoffs to compete for the Emirates NBA Cup trophy. All games except for the championship are toward regular-season points.
Yes, except for one. All group stage matches, quarter and semi-final matches are normal regular season matches for the standing. The final is the only game in the tournament not to count.
There are three team winners in each conference plus one wild card (best runner-up in that conference) for each conference for a total of 8 teams in the bracket per conference.
No. This is another playoff game and tournament, featuring its own trophy, Finals Most Valuable Player award and bonus pool, which is different from the NBA Finals that are held at the end of the playoffs in June.
The 2026 championship will take place at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, which will host from 2023 to 2025, according to NBA.com, which rotates the end-of-season series around the different sites that have been home to basketball.
As a result of the naming rights agreement, Emirates airline is the official title sponsor of the competition which sees its branding as "Emirates NBA Cup" — the same as the competition is shorthanded by fans, "the NBA Cup".
