2024 NBA Cup: Picking the top players, rookie and best game

The second annual NBA Cup is in the books, with the Milwaukee Bucks dominating a poor-shooting Oklahoma City Thunder team 97-81 in Tuesday’s anticlimactic final in Las Vegas.

As compared to last year’s inaugural edition, briefly called the less memorable In-Season Tournament, this NBA Cup felt more mature as a concept. Teams understood how to navigate the point differential tiebreaker from day one and bought into the significance of the NBA Cup despite (largely unfounded) concerns about how it might hurt them down the line.

The result was a tantalizing final matchup pitting the favorite to win the Western Conference against a championship hopeful from the East and featuring two of the top contenders for MVP in Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo — who won NBA Cup MVP honors — and Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Let’s relive how we got there by looking at some superlatives from the NBA Cup group and knockout stages, including my picks for the awards handed out by the league — MVP and All-NBA Cup Team — as well as unofficial picks for top rookie, best coach, best game and more.

MVP: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks

One of my lasting memories from last year’s semifinals was Antetokounmpo coming to terms with his team’s loss to the Indiana Pacers in the postgame news conference. He ensured only his opponents would feel that frustration this time around.

Antetokounmpo averaged 31.7 points per game in this year’s knockout rounds, coming within an assist of a triple-double in the semifinal win over the Atlanta Hawks before recording a triple-double against the Thunder.

More than even those outstanding stats, Antetokounmpo set the tone for his team with playoff-caliber defensive intensity. His block on Trae Young in the fourth quarter against Atlanta was the most memorable play of the knockout round. Against OKC, Antetokounmpo had three blocks and two steals. There was never a doubt about who was the MVP during the final.

All-NBA Cup Team

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder

Damian Lillard, Milwaukee Bucks

Alperen Sengun, Houston Rockets

Trae Young, Atlanta Hawks

Antetokounmpo and Gilgeous-Alexander were locks, and so too was Lillard.

The Bucks had the strongest one-two punch of the teams to reach the knockout stages, with Antetokounmpo and Lillard combining to average nearly 60 points and more than 16 assists per game in the tournament.

Young led Atlanta’s run to the semifinals with 24.2 PPG and 10.8 APG, more than any other player in NBA Cup play.

Choosing a representative from the semifinalist Houston Rockets was the most difficult. No Houston player averaged more than 20 PPG, and Sengun wasn’t particularly efficient in NBA Cup games overall. But his 26 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals versus the Trae Young-led upset over the Knicks in the quarterfinals) and 6-4 in all others, including a 30-point home loss to the Denver Nuggets.

Atlanta works on a couple of levels, both for its in-season improvement and year over year. In the 2023 tournament, the Hawks went 1-3 with their only win over the lowly Pistons and were outscored by 32 points — the worst point differential of any team that reached this season’s knockout stages, let alone the semifinals.

Biggest disappointment: Cleveland Cavaliers

Group C in the East featured the conference’s top two teams this season, Cleveland and the Boston Celtics, yet the Hawks emerged as unlikely winners. The Celtics at least finished second and would have advanced as the East’s wild card had the Orlando Magic defeated the New York Knicks on the last night of group play.

The Cavaliers were long eliminated by then, having lost both to Atlanta and in a showdown in Boston to finish at 2-2. The NBA Cup looked like a golden opportunity for Cleveland to hang a rare banner. Instead, the Cavs will have to hope their strong start translates into a deep playoff run in the spring.

Best game: Golden State 120, Dallas 117

The first night of NBA Cup play produced the most memorable matchup: Klay Thompson returning to the San Francisco Bay Area to face the Warriors for the first time since leaving for the Mavericks via a sign-and-trade deal over the summer.

Both player and team handled the emotional reunion (complete with sailboat captain hats) perfectly, with Thompson making six 3-pointers and scoring 22 points. The finish lived up to the hype too, with Stephen Curry scoring the final 12 points for Golden State, which rallied from a 114-108 deficit with 3:10 to play to win a contest that wasn’t decided until Luka Doncic missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer in the closing seconds.

Both teams advanced to the knockout stages, but the outcome gave Dallas a tougher matchup at Oklahoma City in a quarterfinals loss.