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Did you speak to any casual NBA fans over Thanksgiving about the NBA Cup? Because I spoke to a lot of them in the Boston area, and even the ones who knew about it could not grasp where the Celtics stood.
When you find yourself trying to explain the intricacies of the NBA Cup, you begin to understand how it has failed to capture its intended audience’s attention. Every aspect of the tournament leads to several more questions that eventually make you think, You know what. This isn’t even worth trying to explain.
Casual: “How does it work?”
Me: “There are six groups of five teams. They each play one another once. The winner of each group, along with two wild-card teams with the best records, advances to a single-elimination tournament.”
Casual: “Sounds interesting. And confusing. … So who’s in Boston’s group?”
Me [having to look it up again]: “Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland and Washington.”
Casual: “When are the games?”
Me: “They’re on Tuesdays and Fridays during a three-week span.”
Casual: “And they have the weird courts for those games.”
Me: “Correct!”
Do not adjust your sets. This is an NBA Cup game. (Photo by Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Casual: “It distracts me from the game.”
Me: “Same.”
Casual: “Did the Celtics win their group?”
Me: “The Hawks did.”
Casual: “What was their record?”
Me: “3-1, same as the Celtics, except the Hawks beat the Celtics head-to-head.”
Casual: “That makes sense!”
Me: “But the Celtics can still get in the single-elimination tournament.”
Casual: “How’s that?”
Me [having to look it up again]: “They either need the Knicks to beat the Magic by 37 or the Magic to beat the Knicks and either the Bucks to beat the Pistons by six or the Pistons to beat the Bucks by five.”
Casual: “Yeah, I’m not following all that.”
Me [in front of a cold plate of food]: “I think I’m going to throw up.”
And … scene.
Seriously, you have to be a real basketball sicko to want to try to understand this:
The NBA created this tournament for the casual fan, trying to attract more viewers for games before Christmas. But only diehards care to understand it, and they would have watched the games anyway.
This was…
[ad_2]Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/the-nba-cup-got-you-confused-lets-solve-it-once-and-for-all-161655956.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2024-12-03 16:16:00
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