The Portland Trail Blazers’ draw for group play of the 2025 NBA Emirates Cup has been revealed by the league. Portland will play in a star-studded West Group C that includes the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs.
The NBA announced all the groups for the third annual in-season tournament Wednesday morning.
The #EmiratesNBACup 2025 Group Draw results! Starting October 31, all 30 teams will compete for the NBA Cup with 8 teams advancing out of groups into the knockout rounds, with the semifinals and championship held in Las Vegas, December 13 and 16!
— NBA (@nba.com) 2025-07-09T18:04:57.009Z
West Group C is a tough draw for the Trail Blazers, who will almost assuredly be projected to finish last among the five teams. To make it through to the knockout rounds, Portland will have to survive amongst the likes of Nikola Jokic, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and Victor Wembanyama. And all of these stars are backed up by solid-to-great rosters, to boot. While the West is stacked and any group was going to be difficult, this might be the Murderer’s Row of groups to be thrown in to. But hey, anything is possible with a little NBA Cup magic in the Pacific Northwest Autumn air.
Group play will start on Oct. 31 and run through Nov. 28. Teams play each opponent in their group round-robin style. Eight teams will advance to the knockout rounds: the top teams from each group and two wild-card teams — the team from each conference with the best record in Group Play games that finished second in its group. The single-elimination knockout rounds will begin with the quarterfinals on Dec. 9-10 in NBA team markets. Then the show moves to Las Vegas for the Semifinals and Final on Dec. 13 and Dec. 16, respectively.
Last year in the second annual NBA Cup, the Blazers finished fourth in their group with a 2-2 record, failing to qualify for the knockout rounds.