If the NBA had the Commissioner’s Cup

With the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup coming up, how would NBA teams shake out in a similar format?

On Thursday, August 12, the Connecticut Sun and Seattle Storm will face off for the inaugural WNBA Commissioner’s Cup. This mid-season matchup is the culmination of an early-season tournament that was baked into the first half of the 2021 WNBA regular season.

The format of this tournament saw the first home and road games of a team’s season series against conference opponents count towards the Commissioner Cup standings. The first place team in each conference would then meet up for Thursday’s game, which also marks the beginning of the second half of the season and the playoff push that comes with it.

Naturally, I wondered how this type of tournament would work in the NBA. So, I dug through the schedules and added up the wins and losses from each team’s first home and road games against intra-conference foes. The final results are listed below. The tiebreakers are based off of the rules for the WNBA’s tournament.

Based off the results, the Utah Jazz and Milwaukee Bucks would be squaring off. The Jazz prevailed 2-0 in the season series between these two squads. They came away with a sizable total point differential of +27, winning both games by 13 and 14 points.

Where did your favorite team fall within these NBA Commissioner’s Cup standings? Let me know in the comments below!