How long are we going to pretend the NBA Cup is important?

The Utah Jazz lost, 120-112, to the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night. The team fell to 2-8 on the season.
But more importantly! They lost their first NBA Cup game of the season! That’s what the fans care about, right? That’s what fans are talking about after the game, right? Don’t you care? Don’t the players care? Wasn’t the intensity of the night different and better than another regular-season game?
(Note to the NBA: In case it did not register, the above paragraph was written sarcastically. The fans, in fact, do not care about the NBA Cup.)
Last year, I argued that the NBA Cup (then only called the in-season tournament, a wildly boring name) was fun, and as a pro-fun person, I was hopeful about having something that felt important during the early part of the NBA season. I stand by the idea that money can be a motivator and I think the general idea of mid-season tournament is a fun idea. But the NBA is missing out on the most important component.
We already know that the only thing players really care about (beyond money) is the playoffs. We have been told time and time again by the best players in the world that the regular season doesn’t matter, it’s just a means to an end because everyone is playing for the postseason.
Coaches even hold back during the regular season. They save their best and most chess-matchy moves for the playoffs because they want the slight edge. In the eyes of the people that are on the court, playing and coaching the games, it is the playoffs that they truly care about.
So, if you’re going to get players, and the fans to truly care about the NBA Cup, it has to have playoff implications.
We’re now two years in to seeing reporters ask players and coaches about the NBA Cup games. Do they replicate playoff energy? Are the games a little more intense than regular-season games?
And for the most part, when these guys are answering the questions, you can almost feel how hard it is for them to manufacture some sort of politically correct answer that doesn’t make the league office mad. But there have been instances where players have actually laughed at the idea that an NBA Cup game means anything more than another regular-season game.
Players don’t know how the tournament works, they don’t know how the groups are formed, and the only reason that they know that it’s a game that is different is because the court looks different. Coaches aren’t changing lineups or preparing differently.
Use tonight as an example. The Jazz’s starting center, Walker Kessler, did not play because of hip soreness. That is probably not an injury that keeps a player out of a playoff game, or a game that could get them to the playoffs. But it’s certainly an injury that can, and did, keep a player out of a run-of-the-mill regular-season game that is billed as being slightly more important.
After the game, the other Jazz beat reporters and myself had a discussion about how the NBA could fix this problem. Where we landed was that the NBA Cup winner get’s their $500K per person, but also is guaranteed the seventh seed at the end of the regular season. If the team is an otherwise lottery team, that NBA Cup win and seventh seed would not impact their lottery odds. Their lottery odds would still only be determined by their win-loss record from the regular season.
This would put the NBA Cup winner into the play-in tournament, which would be fun for the fans and the players.
For teams that would otherwise be in the lottery, it would be an ultra competitive game experience that they wouldn’t be able to get any other way. There’s a chance they could end up winning a play-in game and getting a first-round series.
For teams that were already going to be high seeds in either conference, the guaranteed spot could be incredible insurance. What if you’re the Oklahoma City Thunder and you lose Chet Holmgren for a couple of months because of injury (oh wait…)? What if another injury starts to hurt the playoff odds? What if you know you’re going to get your guys back for the playoffs but are worried about just barely missing out on the playoffs? An NBA Cup title could be just the boon you need in that case.
I feel like this is something that is not going to happen. I don’t think the NBA is going to involve the playoffs in their NBA Cup plans. And that’s why I think we have a real problem when it comes to anyone actually caring. The fans don’t care and the players clearly don’t care. So who is this for?