This season marks the second year of the new Emirates NBA Cup, Commissioner Adam Silver's brainchild in the form of an in-season tournament. The NBA Cup was bred out of a desire to reinstall excitement and urgency into the regular season while also cutting down on player absences for minor injuries and load management.
It does so by giving teams and players something more crucial to play for other than plain regular season wins. Not only does the champion receive an important honor in the league annals, but every single player on the winning team receives over $500,000. Even those that make it to the final game but fall short receive over $200,000. Those amounts might be chump change for the superstars playing on max contracts, but it can be life-changing money for the two-way guys and second-round picks on the team.
The New Orleans Pelicans have quite a few players making the minimum or less on the roster, including Brandon Boston Jr. who was picked up off of waivers after a slew of injuries and has performed well in his time. The Pelicans may have been motivated to play well in the NBA Cup to earn their lesser-known players some extra cash, but, ultimately, they flunked out of the in-season tournament early on and ended the group stage on another loss.
The Pelicans failed to improve on their performance in the inaugural NBA Cup
Last season, New Orleans was one of the more surprising participants in the in-season tournament. Aside from the Indiana Pacers, who went to the championship game before falling short against the Los Angeles Lakers, the Pels may have been the most unexpected performers in the Cup.
They went 3-1 in the group stage last year, building a colossal +33 point differential through four games. They continued their impressive run by downing the Sacramento Kings in the quarterfinals before getting blown out by the eventual champion Lakers in the semis. Zion Williamson spoke of that 44-point loss as a turning point for him, stating that he hoped to seek revenge for that crushing defeat this season. He never got the chance.
This year, the Pelicans went just 1-3 in group play. They stole a win against a Denver Nuggets squad missing two-time MVP Nikola Jokic. Then, it was all downhill from there, as they took loss after loss to their other groupmates, the Dallas Mavericks, Golden State Warriors, and Memphis Grizzlies.
Brandon Ingram was New Orleans's MVP in the NBA Cup this year, averaging 21.3 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 6.0 assists in three games, shooting 44 percent from the field and 35 percent from deep. CJ McCollum tallied 30 points against the Grizzlies in his lone Cup game this season.
In such a stacked group and with all of their injuries, the Pelicans stood no chance. They've racked up the worst point differential at -49, although the Washington Wizards could overtake them if they lost by eight or more against the Milwaukee Bucks. Zion and the Pels will have to wait until next season to get their NBA Cup revenge.