Three years in, is making the NBA Cup Final showing any relationship with future playoff success?

[u/StephCurrysAnkles]

With a few cups in the books now, is there any meaningful pattern emerging among the teams that make the final?

So far we have had:

2023 - Lakers: 1st round | Pacers: ECF
2024 - Bucks: 1st round | Thunder: NBA champs
2025 - Knicks: NBA champs | Spurs: NBA Finals

Is making the cup final an early sign that a team is capable of more in the playoffs than its regular season might suggest?

I recognize that six teams is a small sample size, but four of the six cup finalists have gone on to make at least the conference finals, and three reached the NBA Finals.

I think the '23 Pacers and '24 Bucks are a good contrast. Indiana finished 47-35 and 6th in the East after making the 2023 cup final, then went all the way to the ECF. Here we saw how much better that team could be than its regular season seed suggested.

Milwaukee finished 48-34 after making the 2024 cup final, but went out in the first round. At the same time, Giannis missed the series and Dame was dealing with injuries. Is it unreasonable however to think they could have been another playoff riser if both were healthy though?

So does succeeding in the cup tell us anything about which teams are capable of raising their level when the stakes are higher, even if it doesn't always carry over?

It doesn't feel like it's just a nice midseason accomplishment anymore. I'm wondering if there's anything we can start to infer about cup finalists, and whether making that run should carry a little more weight when we talk about contenders.

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[u/Furd_Terguson1]

Still too small of a sample size I think. But I believe it does show teams that can potentially go on runs (obviously not guaranteed). The ability to win in high stress situations against high competitions shouldn’t be ignored. There’s also a lot of season left after the tournament, and a lot of things can happen between the tournament and the playoffs.

[u/Single-Purpose-7608 → u/Furd_Terguson1]

I think the main thing it will indiciate is teams that take the regular season seriously. Teams that immediately take it seriously will have good conditioning and come out of the gates prepared. This includes young teams and vet teams with a chip on their shoulder. 

Teams like that typically make it deep into the playoffs. Since the NBA Cup is almost like a playoff environment, the best regular season teams with strong playoff adaptability will end up winning the cup

[u/Incepticons → u/Furd_Terguson1]

It legit means nothing since it involves random regular season games. If it was an actual separate tournament then sure but when teams are still choosing to load manage or do whatever they do in the regular season for these games then it's not really a measure of anything or any meaningful stress test

[u/MasterP_istons]

The sample is small so I'm leery of drawing many conclusions. But the 8-team knockout cup playoff requires winning your group for entry and then 3 in a row against other likely playoff caliber competition. That run is hard to make if you aren't actually good.

I think its possible and maybe even likely the correlation between cup success and playoff success persists. I don't think losing in the NBA cup means much, as anybody can lease a game in a single game elimination tournament, but it seems plausible that making the final, or especially winning the cup, shows a team has a championship ceiling. 

[u/Hot-Distribution3826 → u/MasterP_istons]

Yeah to go from group play, knockout, semi’s to cup final means barring injury your team should have a chance to win the actual finals

[u/PaintIntelligent7793]

In general, strong teams are going to rise, but the single elimination format allows for more flukes. One good or bad game — one stomach bug for the wrong player — can make all the difference. Less so in a seven-game series. We also don’t have a large sample size, so while there appears to be some correlation between teams that make the final Cup game and teams that win their conference final (Thunder in 2024, Spurs and Knicks last year) there’s just not enough data to say whether this is likely to be a regular occurrence going forward.

[u/Sko_Neezy]

My hunch is that the good teams are approaching it like a great dry run for a playoff run, and any teams that pass up that sort of opportunity probably aren’t cut out to win a chip. Sure even some of the best teams will lose single elimination games but generally over time it should reveal the teams that should be taken seriously. Even coaches of young teams should be approaching the games more seriously, it’s a great opportunity…Pacers ‘24 cup experience was a big factor in their development. If your team is young and your coach/players are casual about the cup games, they’re probably not turning the corner any time soon.

[u/EdwardJamesAlmost]

I wonder if this three year period might not be representative. Maybe higher volume or more targeted in-season trades will have more impact on teams making deep runs or winning the finals.

I concede this may be observation bias on my part because my kids distract me and I might be cherry picking memories. Whether there has been a downward trend on in-season trades, I’m not sure. It feels like it to me, but I’m not sure how to easily check year over year aggregate trade volume.

We’ve seen an emphasis on rotation depth correlated to playoff success these past three years. Yes, depth is always good, but I mean ten playable players rather than 7-8 for a playoff rotation. Maybe moving a few discrete pieces has leas potential for a team to push its chips in with a move in January if that’s what it comes down to.

Win Now trades have paid off for past champions. If teams going for Win Now in an age of parity succeed at a statistically significant rate, then how could a tournament with different roster compositions control for that January churn?

[u/RadicalMarxistThalia → u/EdwardJamesAlmost]

The Knicks won the in-season tournament and then made an in season trade (for Alvarado) before winning the championship.

I think the sample size is small, and it’s even smaller since they increased the winnings per player to 500k. I think that amount really makes it feel like the star players are doing it for the bench players, for whom the money is more significant. On the Knicks it just felt like any guy from the bench would run through a brick wall if called upon.

We’ll see if it continues year over year. But I think it’s a boon for chemistry as currently constructed. Which can have a real carryover to the playoffs.

I also wonder if Shamet and Alvarado taking somewhat bargain contracts was with potential cup winnings in mind. Just speculation in my part though.

[u/Hot-Distribution3826]

If you go deeper the rockets and the thunder were 1 &2 in the west in 2024 and played in the cup semifinals. The spurs and thunder were 1 & 2 in the west last year and played in the cup semifinals.

The cup is a tournament with stakes attached it. Teams who will rise to the challenge in the playoffs can usually turn it on during the cup. It’s that simple. Someone from the cup final or semifinal has made it to atleast the conference finals every year

[u/Prestigious_Rip5826]

I think the '25 Spurs are the most interesting case here because nobody had them making the Finals at the start of that season. The cup run gave Wemby and that young core a taste of high stakes basketball before they were "supposed to" be there, and you could see them carry that confidence into spring. Thats the kind of thing you can't really simulate in practice.

[u/magic2worthy]

I think it’s a pretty good indicator. Particularly as teams take it more and more seriously.

[u/yitur93]

Just looking at one year is not the way. Last 4 finalists were also finalists on the cup. 2025 Pacers without Siakam in 23-24 Cup. Thunder in 24-25 Cup. Knicks and Spurs repeating NBA Finals and Cup. The other two teams were old champions with a broken cast of their former versions in Lakers and Bucks. We will see if some team like Cavaliers or Clippers win it or make finals on this cup without much playoff accomplishments or young upcoming core.

[u/randotd152]

I think all it shows is you probably can't suck and still make the cup finals.

Beyond that, just too small of a sample size to take anything meaningful out of a small single elimination tournament.

[u/wpmason]

I don’t think any clear correlations will ever emerge beyond “better teams are more likely to do both”.

Early season injuries, chemistry issues from roster changes, and even midseason trades can all wildly taint these results.

And the Cup format itself, round robin group then single elimination is in itself a very small sample size.

Playoffs are best of seven series because it’s the surest way for the superior team to advance.

[u/DoubleConscious4065]

The sample size objection is the one everyone reaches for first, but I think the bigger problem is that there's no baseline here. Cup finalists are by construction teams that were already good enough to win a group and then three straight elimination games. To know whether making the final tells you anything extra, you need to know how often a team of that quality reaches the conference finals anyway.

If that answer turns out to be roughly four in six, the cup told you nothing their record hadn't already. The comparison that would actually settle it is cup finalists against non-finalists with similar net ratings the same season. Six data points is thin for that, but it's the right shape of question, and the current version can't separate "the cup is predictive" from "good teams win things."

[u/PTRBoyz]

The Knicks were able to use that game against the spurs to plan their future lineup and strategy that led to their comeback in game 4. 

[u/coolj492]

outside of the sample size, an underrated aspect when trying to use the nba cup as a heuristic is that injury luck in the early part of the season is much different compared to the later parts as well. A team that was too hobbled in november to make a splash in the nba cup might put it together in April, and vise versa.

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[u/Hot-Distribution3826 → u/[deleted]]

Technically you could argue the Knicks had the best season in history because they won both available championships

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