Las Vegas — Many things in Las Vegas are fake or replicas of better ones. No one would confuse a strip version of the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building for the real thing. That inauthenticity is part of its charm. The city serves as one of the world's biggest tourist attractions because there is real substance behind its unnatural exterior.
In many ways, Las Vegas is the perfect embodiment of what you would expect from the NBA Cup.
The NBA Cup is a fabricated, arbitrary event created out of thin air so the league can get more money from Amazon in its next TV rights deal. And unlike other made-up sporting events, like college football bowl games or the European soccer tournament we're trying to recreate, we don't have years of background on what it actually is. Therefore, it is difficult to sell to the general public. This is the second event this weekend to take place remotely in the NFL, and at best the third largest event held in Las Vegas behind the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo and the Monday Night Football game between the Raiders and Falcons. That's why. People wearing cowboy hats and Bijan Robinson jerseys were walking around the Strip. Thunder or Bucks gear was nowhere to be found.
Las Vegas is a destination city, but for now the NBA Cup is a destination event in name only.
“The problem, as well as the turnout, is that five days ago no one in Milwaukee knew we were coming here,” he said. milwaukee bucks head coach Doc Rivers; “Nobody from Oklahoma State thought they'd be here. It's stiff.”
It was felt in the arena in the semi-finals. one year later lakers Fans took over the building to cheer on their favorite team just a few hours away from Los Angeles. In the second year of The Cup, crowd lights were dimmed when the arena opened to mask worrying attendance issues.
But even though the seats were nearly full and 17,000 to 18,000 fans showed up, attendance was actually officially higher than previous years. sports business journal The approximately 20,000-seat T-Mobile Arena was not yet filled, according to reports. The problem was that the fans who were there didn't seem all that invested in the outcome, but rather were there to watch the spectacle as neutral observers. Local residents shouting “Night” during the national anthem mostly admitted they would rather watch a Golden Knights game, but were forced to sit in the same arena where the local hockey team normally plays. It was just that. As a result, there was almost no noise in the gymnasium during the match. Other than the squeak of sneakers, which can easily be heard even in the bowl above.
Stadium reacts to Giannis Antetokounmpo's game-saving block; beat the atlanta hawks Same as a regular home crowd does for a team's first quarter three when fans are still trying to find their seats. That neutrality ruins the great basketball being played.
The product on the court was great throughout the tournament. The cash incentives haven't hurt – as Thunder wing Jaylen Williams succinctly put it after the team, “Everybody wants free money.” defeated the Houston Rockets — But the prize money wasn't the only reason this event was a success.
Not every great basketball game ever played involved money tied to the outcome. A love of competition and the desire to prove that you are better than your opponent is what all great matches have in common, whether they take place in a private driveway or in front of thousands of spectators. . As we saw at the recent All-Star Game, money alone can't buy it.
The Bucks are one example. Their four highest-paid players have combined lifetime earnings of more than $1 billion. What's the extra $500,000 good for? Playing for trophies is another story.
“if [money] If that's your only motivation, you're not going to get very far,” Antetokounmpo said. “For me, it's about creating more art, creating more memorable moments, creating more legacy for myself so that my kids can look back and say, 'Damn, my dad was bad. It's about creating something that you can say, “It was MF.''
The Bucks (14-11), like the other three teams that made it to Las Vegas, had something different to prove. They got off to a terrible start, going 2-8, but have completely turned it around and are poised to be the top team in a conference that was left undefeated.
“I just wanted to win the Cup,” Rivers said. “A lot of people outside of Milwaukee were like, 'What is going on?' [with the Bucks]?'I don't think the people inside thought that at all. We believed it would work. It was going to happen. ”
The Thunder (20-5) are on the other end of the spectrum. They have shown throughout the season that they are Inner Circle title contenders and continue to run away from the Western Conference, and the young upstarts are using this tournament as a rehearsal for what could be the first of many playoff overtime games. I'm looking forward to it. As a group. They're proving to the league, and perhaps more importantly, to themselves, that they belong in this environment.
“It's a great test and a great challenge to understand where we are and how to play in a situation like this,” Thunder head coach Mark Daino said. “We're going to learn from it one way or another.”
All of this made for great competition, which can't be said for either of the NBA's other two midseason mainstays. The Christmas Day game has been overshadowed by the NFL, with more teams and players known for who they were than who they are now. Relying on past stars and not promoting new teams or markets continues to be a problem for the league. On the other hand, the players attending the All-Star Game know that the playoffs are right around the corner and have no motivation to do their best and move forward. The league avoided both of these problems with the NBA Cup. The game and its outcome are important to the participants, which is not usually the case at All-Star or Christmas Day showcases.
But the NBA has figured out a way to get its officials to care more and compete more intensely, which arguably resulted in a better production than your average regular-season game on Tuesday night. , the problem is that the outside world hasn't invested yet. Even in the city where the film is being shown, taxi drivers were surprised that a sportswriter had come all the way from Cleveland for this.
There is also a problem with getting the target audience interested, which is the purpose of this event. Some of my colleagues on the SB Nation NBA Network; I'm so glad their team didn't progress. We even ran an editorial on our Bucks site just hoping the player didn't get hurt. “It makes no sense.” This is the 83rd game not counted in the regular season standings. Even if the league doesn't bother my basketball blogging buddies about this, they probably have a way of following the casual observer. And as proof that the NBA knows just as much, Rivers said some rather harsh words in response to my question about what The Cup means to his team. There is no other way than to see their efforts to change the advertising that says they have changed. season:
There is no simple solution to fan apathy other than to keep playing competitive games and hope that the public will understand when they are continually exposed to them. Even if it ends up being more exciting than the second year, the NBA Cup will always be contrived and complicated. It's a combination of the NBA Playoffs and March Madness, with no real historical stakes to make one or the other equally good.
But as the very existence of Las Vegas proves, even an empty replica can be enough to draw people in, as long as there's a fun atmosphere around it. The NBA managed to at least create that with The Cup. The next challenge is to get the fans as passionate as the players and coaches involved, and to make players feel like almost-failed stars, who the NBA offers residency in the Nevada desert for one last shot at making money. I'll probably find a way to avoid it.
