The 2025 NBA Cup begins on Friday. Don't feel ashamed if you didn't know. It's Halloween, after all. You're probably busy, and the tournament has never started this early. The group stage was a November exclusive in 2023. It extended into December last year, and used a Tuesdays and Fridays format in both seasons. This year though? It's all over the map. We begin with four Fridays: Oct. 31, Nov. 7, Nov. 14 and Nov. 21. Then the NBA will attempt to own the week of Thanksgiving with more group stage games on Nov. 25, 26 and 28.

If all of that feels arbitrary to you, well, that's sort of how it's felt for the past two years. It's hard to take a tournament seriously when it's broken up in this manner. Sometimes you'll just tune into a game and see a colorful court. It's hard to get fans in

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