The league announced the groups for the 2025 Emirates NBA Cup and the Spurs won’t have it easy. San Antonio is in Group C along with the Nuggets, Rockets, Warriors and Trail Blazers. The Silver and Black will host Houston and Golden State and visit Denver and Portland.
The league’s in-season tournament will be played for the third consecutive season, and it may be hard for the Spurs to advance past the group stage for the first time despite dramatically improving their roster since the first iteration. San Antonio has landed in the toughest group, facing two contenders in the Rockets and Nuggets, and two playoff hopefuls in Golden State and Portland. The group stage consists of only four games, two home and two away for every team, so anything can happen, but there are no gimmies in this edition. The weakest opponent is arguably the Blazers, which finished last season ahead of the Spurs in the standings and should be better this year.
> Eight teams will advance to the Knockout Rounds: the team with the best standing in Group Play games in each of the six groups and two “wild cards” (the team from each conference with the best record in Group Play games that finished second in its group). The Knockout Rounds will consist of single-elimination games in the Quarterfinals (played in NBA team markets on Tuesday, Dec. 9 and Wednesday, Dec. 10) and Semifinals and Championship (played in Las Vegas on Dec. 13 and Dec. 16, respectively). The Knockout teams will compete for a prize pool and the NBA Cup championship trophy.
San Antonio lost all four group games in the 2023 edition, won by the Lakers, and went 2-2 in 2024, in a cup that crowned the Bucks.
Here are all the groups for the 2025 edition:
> The groups are set for the Emirates NBA Cup 2025.All 30 NBA teams were randomly drawn into groups of five within their conference based on win-loss records from the 2024-25 regular season.
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> The groups are available below. [pic.twitter.com/ZZVUwtp3fO](https://t.co/ZZVUwtp3fO)
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> — NBA Communications (@NBAPR) [July 9, 2025](https://twitter.com/NBAPR/status/1943008854502969433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
All three West groups are tough, but Group A has the rebuilding Jazz and the retooling Suns, and Group B features the injury-riddled Grizzlies and Mavericks, and the confusing Pelicans. Meanwhile, the East has several weak teams, which makes the groups easier for the top squads.
The tournament games will be played between October 31 and November 28, so there won’t be much time for teams to develop chemistry beforehand. All games except for the championship game count towards the standings. The semifinals and finals will be held in Las Vegas on December 13 and 16, respectively.