Which NBA Cup groups are the hardest, and how does the wild card work?

By McKinley Malbrough III, J.D., MS-HRM · Certified WNBA player agent · Former certified NBA agent

Published October 31, 2026. Last updated October 31, 2026.

This guide covers the group stage only. The dates, final site and base prize amounts are in the NBA Cup format post, the first night of results is in the opening-night results post, and what players are paid is in the NBA Cup prize money guide. The NBA Cup is the league's in-season tournament, and its group games count in the regular-season standings. How the money side of a roster works is in the NBA salary cap guide, and the two-way contract guide covers the players on the end of a roster.

Which teams are in each NBA Cup group?

The 30 teams sit in six groups of five, three groups per conference, per NBA.com. The East and West each have 15 teams, so each conference splits evenly into three groups.

ESPN's group list matches the NBA's, per ESPN. Teams only face opponents from their own conference in group play.

How were the groups drawn, and how many games does each team play?

Teams were randomly placed into five-team groups within their conference, and the pots used for the draw were based on prior-season records, per NBA Cup 101. Pot 1, for example, holds the three teams with the best prior-season records in a conference, per NBA Cup 101.

Each team plays the other four teams in its group once, with two games at home and two on the road, per NBA Cup 101. That makes 10 games per group and 60 group games in all, per NBA Cup 101. A group is a round robin, which means every team plays every other team once.

The math is simple. Basketball games cannot end in a tie, so each of the 10 games gives one win, and the five teams share 10 wins. The average team finishes 2-2, so a team that goes 3-1 is above average and a team that goes 4-0 is rare.

Which NBA Cup group is the hardest?

ESPN calls East Group B "a monster" and says all five of its teams are among the favorites to win the East in 2026-27, per ESPN. The NBA's own pages do not rank the groups, so "hardest" here is ESPN's view and not a league ranking.

Group math shows why a crowded group is costly. At most two teams from one group can advance: the group winner, and a second-place team that earns the wild card. In East Group B, that means at least three of the five teams ESPN lists as East favorites will not reach the quarterfinals, by the author's reading of the advancement rules in NBA Cup 101.

The odds are tight everywhere. Eight of the 30 teams advance, per NBA Cup 101, which is about 27 percent of the league. Inside any one group, a team has a one-in-five starting chance to win it, and the wild card is a second path only for second-place teams.

How does the NBA Cup wild card work?

The wild card is the team from each conference with the best record in group play among those that finished second in their group, per NBA Cup 101. The six group winners and two wild cards make eight teams in the knockout rounds, per NBA Cup 101. The team with the best group record also hosts the wild card team, per NBA Cup 101.

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ESPN words it differently. It says the group winners advance along with "the team with the best record among the non-group winners," per ESPN, and it does not use the term wild card. The two wordings should pick the same team in almost every case, because a second-place team always has a record at least as good as the teams ranked below it in its own group. This guide follows the NBA's wording, as the library's format post does.

The wild card race has one rule that group races lack. If second-place teams from different groups are tied, the same tiebreakers apply "with the exception of the head-to-head record in Group Play," per NBA Cup 101. Those teams never played each other, so there is no head-to-head game to use. Point differential is therefore the first tiebreaker in a wild card race.

A strong team can still miss out. A 3-1 team that finishes second in its group goes home if another second-place team in its conference has a better record, or the same record and a better point differential, per the wild card rule in NBA Cup 101.

When do NBA Cup tiebreakers decide who advances?

Within a group, the first tiebreaker is head-to-head record, and the second is point differential in group play, per NBA Cup 101. The full order, including total points and the 2025-26 record, is in the library's format post.

Because each pair of teams meets once, a tie between exactly two teams is settled by the game they played. Point differential matters when three or more teams finish level. Picture a group where every team beats two opponents and loses to two. All five finish 2-2, their head-to-head records match, and point differential, then total points, decide the order. That scenario is possible, though unlikely. The NBA lists a random drawing as the last tiebreaker, for the "unlikely scenario" that ties remain, per NBA Cup 101.

Overtime is treated as zero point differential, and overtime points do not count in total points, per NBA Cup 101. A late basket in a blowout can matter more here than in a normal regular-season game.

What does East Group B's schedule look like?

East Group B plays all 10 of its games between October 30 and November 27, and two of them fall on the final night, per ESPN's schedule. The Cup's group nights run from October 30 to November 27, per NBA.com.

The two October 30 scores are per Eurohoops. Every team in the group has four games, and the last two nights can reshuffle the table. The team standings after the first night are in the library's opening-night results post, and the cap rules that shape these rosters are in the NBA salary cap guide.