LAS VEGAS – The Milwaukee Bucks and Oklahoma City Thunder will play for the NBA Cup championship in Las Vegas on Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. It’s likely to be an emotional game with an additional $300,000 per player at stake.

And then they disperse and reunite with the endless hustle and bustle of a league regular season, with games rushing toward them in a rhythm that belies the physical and emotional toll that comes with playing such a high-stakes game in Las Vegas simply doesn’t show much respect for the participants.

The Thunder’s season continues on Thursday in Orlando, followed by another game on Friday in Miami. The Bucks don’t play until Friday, so they can at least go home for a day before traveling to Cleveland for a game, followed by a home game Saturday against Washington.

It is exactly this scenario that the two head coaches involved in the NBA Cup Final want to change for the tournament in the coming years.

“Basically, we’re on a six-day road trip to the West Coast right now, and our next game is three time zones away, a four-hour flight to Orlando and then a back-to-back game against Miami – what if…” You get the idea “A road trip is an unprecedented road trip,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “The NBA would never plan this. You would never send a team on a six-day road trip to the West Coast and then fly them back to back to the East.”

Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers added: “If there’s one thing I could tweak, it would be to try to give a cushion to the teams playing in the finals afterward.”

“But that would probably be the only change I would make,” Rivers said. “I love the (NBA Cup). I love the format. I like that people want to win this thing, and that’s good.”

The NBA Cup is one of commissioner Adam Silver’s ongoing experiments impacting the game on the court. It joins the Play-In Tournament and the ever-evolving All-Star Game with at least one potential big change coming: location. The league has not reached an agreement with Las Vegas to bring the Cup Final Four here for a third season.

The play-in, which could probably use a name change (the Emirates NBA Cup was just called an in-season tournament last year), creates a mini-tournament for the seeds 7 to 10 in each conference to reach the playoffs. Outside of a sponsor, this format is unlikely to change anytime soon.

The All-Star Game, well, Silver has already said that the league wants to change the format and reports from The athlete and other media outlets emerged saying the new format would likely be a four-team, single-elimination tournament.

The five Cup games played in Las Vegas over the past two seasons have each drawn between 16,000 and 19,000 fans in a 21,000-seat venue. The league could abandon the neutral venue for the Cup semifinals and finals and play the games in NBA domestic markets to maximize viewership and atmosphere for TV purposes. Abu Dhabi’s public investment fund has expressed interest in bringing the cup to the Middle East, according to sources close to the fund – which would pose even greater scheduling challenges than the ones Daigneault and Rivers faced on Monday led.

Additionally, Sports Business Journal reported that Mexico City, Tampa, Nashville and San Diego have made inquiries about hosting the Cup Final Four.

“As long as it’s a warm place, I’m fine,” Rivers said. “Just no cold places, please. … I don’t even subscribe to the whole thing – that Vegas has to be the place for it anyway. It’s just a convention city. It is a neutral site that is very difficult to find. If they want to move it to other neutral, warm locations in the city, I think everyone would be fine with that.”

In some ways, scheduling is the NBA Cup’s biggest challenge because it impacts fan travel to neutral sites. The quarterfinals take place on a Tuesday and Wednesday; The two teams that won on Wednesday had about 24 hours to get to Las Vegas and practice on Friday, and two days isn’t much time for fans to book travel arrangements once they find out their team has progressed.

On the other hand, it is impossible for the NBA schedulers to give the two Cup finalists a break in the schedule unless they move the entire league’s schedule to, say, the Saturday after the Cup championship game.

The Cup Championship is the only game in the tournament that does not factor into the regular season standings or even the statistics kept for the season. At stake is a trophy and cash. Both the Bucks and Thunder have already earned an additional $205,988 per player by reaching the Cup final; The winning team’s winnings increase to $514,971 per player.

“It’s a constant joke we have in our locker room, like we say we play for the young guys because that money is going to mean a lot to them – but it really means a lot to everyone because it’s a lot of money,” the Bucks said star Giannis Antetokounmpo, who will earn $45.6 million this season.

Personally, I try not to think about the money,” Antetokounmpo said. “As far as the game goes, I love playing basketball. I don’t like playing basketball anymore because of the money, and because I don’t like lying, when I came into the league I obviously wanted to take care of my family. You want to send your brothers to a better school than you. You want to give your parents a better life, buy your mother a house, you know, all the stories about all the athletes.

“But at some point, if that’s your motivation, you’re not going to get far,” Antetokounmpo continued. “There must be something inside you that wakes you up every day to put your body through this stress. You know putting our bodies through this stress, it just creates more art.” It creates more moments that I can remember. I’m creating more of a legacy for myself or something that my kids can look back on and say, ‘Damn, my dad was a bad MF player when he used to play.'”

As the league’s executive office and players try to find a solution to the All-Star Game, one idea was to allow larger cash payouts to the winner. All-Star Weekend still brings in big money for the NBA through sponsorships and has its popular Saturday night program that includes a dunk and 3-point contests, but format changes for Sunday’s All-Star Game haven’t worked in recent years as players play less and less defense.

“Since we’re the elephant in the room in the competition, it’s expected and makes sense that they’re trying to shake things up,” said Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a two-time All-Star who is likely to finish third this season heading towards. “But in the end it comes down to whether the players want to take part and I would like to see that. I’m definitely excited to be a part of it and I hope it happens.”

As for the Cup, Bucks star Damian Lillard missed practice Monday because of a bruised right calf he suffered in the second quarter of Milwaukee’s semifinal win over Atlanta. Khris Middleton missed practice due to an illness and at least Lillard said he would play on Tuesday.

The Bucks defeated the Hawks 110-102 in the Cup East final, behind 32 points, 14 rebounds, nine assists and four blocks from Antetokounmpo. The Thunder defeated Houston in the Western final 111-96 with 32 points from Gilgeous-Alexander.

The NBA announced Monday that the technical against Luguentz Dort was overturned by the Thunder for taunting after a three-pointer late in the fourth quarter.

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(Photo: Kyle Terada / Imagn Images)