Westbrook, Melo back as Thunder face Cavs

The NBA Cup affords teams who do not qualify for the knockout rounds additional time off and potentially games against weaker competition and therefore a competitive advantage the eight teams who advance do not receive.

The topic was one discussed amongst team executives at the G League Showcase.

“For a league that already has so little actual practice time, teams getting weaker opponents and then valuable days off and hours to practice develop their players and get better at basketball, that seems like a really beneficial advantage to me,” said one Eastern Conference scout.

The league office has made clear they want to receive as much feedback as possible in order to continue to fine-tune the tournament in its nascent stage.

LeBron James, for example, was able to stack an eight-day absence from the Los Angeles Lakers while only missing two games due to the spread out nature of the schedule running alongside the Cup. Last season, the Lakers won the NBA Cup and went on to struggle in the period following it.