The NBA’s In-Season Tournament — officially rebranded as the Emirates NBA Cup in 2024 — has been searching for a signature moment to solidify its meaning to fans, and the 2025 NBA Finals matchup between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers might have just created it.
The 2025 Finals matchup might prove the NBA Cup means more than you think
The Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers might have just proved that losing in the In-Season Tournament is your team’s best path to the NBA Finals.
Photo by Zach Beeker/NBAE via Getty Images
Harrison Faigen has been covering the NBA (primarily the Lakers) since 2013, and is currently the Associate Director of Pro Basketball coverage for SB Nation.
Why? Well, because Oklahoma City and Indiana have something in common besides being two of the league’s smallest markets: They are also the last two runners up in the NBA Cup, with the Pacers losing to the Los Angeles Lakers in the inaugural Las Vegas competition in 2023, and the Thunder losing to the Milwaukee Bucks in 2024’s version.
Clearly, both teams were motivated by losing on the biggest stage the league has to offer: a neutral court in Las Vegas in December, and are motivated to win the outdated, post-season tournament the league puts on as some sort of consolation bracket with much lamer courts as a result.
This is also a reminder that both IST champions — the Lakers and Bucks — lost in the first-round of the ensuing playoffs, proving that #TheCup also provides a championship hangover to its winners, cementing it as a real, banner-worthy tournament.
But while this championship series should be fun, unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until next season to see if the Pacers or Bucks can use their experience in the Finals to catapult them towards an even more meaningful prize next year: $500,000 for every player on the roster of the NBA Cup champion.
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