NBA Cup Power Rankings: How the remaining 8 teams fare in the quarterfinals and beyond
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NBA Cup Power Rankings: How the remaining 8 teams fare in the quarterfinals and beyond

Posted on by Amelia Pressman

Welcome back to the most accurate power rankings on the Internet, where in this biweekly episode we rank the eight-team NBA Cup quarterfinalists in an order so perfect it can’t be questioned.

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics have disappeared from this list. In their place are the surging New York Knicks and Milwaukee Bucks, the surging Atlanta Hawks and the injury-plagued Orlando Magic – perhaps the only teams that can keep Cleveland and Boston from meeting in the Eastern Conference finals.

If the East contingent doesn’t get our hopes up that the NBA Cup’s single-elimination phase can salvage a confusing start to the tournament, get a load of West, where the conference’s top four teams may have reached the quarterfinals (the Memphis Grizzlies, though) . will not get around to making his statement).

How much deeper is the West than the East? Let these performance rankings guide you.

The Magic might have been the East’s best NBA Cup bet if they had either Franz Wagner or Paolo Banchero. According to Cleaning the Glass, they outscore their opponents by 9.6 points per 100 significant possessions when Wagner is on the court without Banchero, and they outscore their opponents by 5.6 points per 100 significant possessions when Banchero plays without Wagner.

And Orlando might have challenged the West winner had he been fully healthy. The Magic are rich with talented teams that enter the draft lottery year after year, and they have the two players they need to lead them. Both Wagner and Banchero have showcased their All-NBA abilities in stints at the helm of an up-and-coming contender. It’s about using it now.

But both tore right oblique muscles, and Orlando performed like an 18-win team without both of them. The team we see in this tournament will (hopefully) not be the one Orlando launches in April.

The Hawks are still the Hawks, who can play just as badly as they can play well. They still have Trae Young and all the strengths and weaknesses that come with using him at the top of the roster. And they’re still fighting to avoid their annual appearance in the play-in tournament.

(NBA Cup Quarterfinals Preview by Dan Devine)

Only now is Atlanta’s inconsistency an encouraging sign. They rely heavily on Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels and Zaccharie Risacher, all under 24 years old. Growing pains are part of their development, but there are few teams – hardly any – that wouldn’t trade wings with the Hawks, and Dominique Wilkins was the last time anyone could say that.

It was good enough to get them here as winners of a group that included both the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers. This single-elimination tournament will be good practice for a return to the playoffs as, for the first time in a long time, there is hope in Atlanta.

Remember when we took a deep dive into 3-point specialists and encouraged Milwaukee to play AJ Green more often? Doc Rivers has listened and Green is rewarding him (48.2% on 8.7 3PA per 36 minutes). The Bucks are 11-5 when Green plays more than 15 minutes and 1-6 when he plays less.

Green’s increased role coincided with Milwaukee’s 10-3 turnaround after a 2-8 start. The Bucks have climbed over .500 and are in position for a guaranteed playoff spot. Her net rating is above zero (0.9) and Khris Middleton made his season debut just in time for this tournament.

All signs point to a team ready to make an NBA Cup statement. Except let’s remember when we dove deep into the strength of the schedule and found that Milwaukee hadn’t played anyone. The Bucks have a 2-8 record against teams with winning records and a 4-7 road record, which combine to make them title contenders. Success in this tournament could change our minds.

Tom Thibodeau reminds us at every turn that his Knicks can’t compete for a championship if their defense doesn’t improve, even if they’ve won 10 of 13 games. During this period, they lead the league with 123.1 points per 100 possessions, but their defensive rating remains below average.

The porous defense is a feature, not a bug, as the Knicks use Karl-Anthony Towns as their starting center and they don’t have an elite reserve guarding the rim to hide his deficit. Towns has been an offensive juggernaut and New York has followed suit, but in the back of our minds we have to wonder if the Knicks can get stops when needed. And they will have to.

Can you win the NBA Cup with subpar defense? And if you can’t do that, what must New York’s front office think of its chances in the playoffs? This tournament could be the impetus for another call to Portland, where the lottery-bound Blazers’ frontcourt is loaded with capable bigs.

The Rockets would have hoped that Jalen Green, their star winger, would have started to reach his All-Star potential by now. Maybe then they could have rewarded him with a maximum contract. Instead, they signed him to a three-year, $106 million contract extension, and his performance earlier this season – an inefficient 19.5 points per game – has confirmed the team’s reluctance.

Meanwhile, Houston has established itself as a fringe contender this season and boasts the NBA’s second-rate defense. And the Rockets are averaging 11.9 points per 100 possessions better when green is not on the ground. If only they had a more reliable scorer to support their mediocre offense.

It’s no surprise that Green is the subject of trade rumors as Houston searches for its next superstar. And it might seem silly to use the NBA Cup quarterfinals as a test case for whether a deal should be done. But if the Rockets discover that Green is detrimental to their success in this tournament, why would they think anything would change come playoff time?

There has been a lot of discussion about Steve Kerr’s 12-man rotation. The approach has never produced championship results. It was surprisingly effective to start the season with everyone fresh for their minutes, which isn’t such a bad idea when the best players are in their mid-30s, but there have been some signs of slip-ups in the last few weeks for all the reasons we’ve had thought.

“It’s hard as hell, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Curry said of his coach’s tactics. “The only thing I want to say is that it is difficult for anyone to find a rhythm and know what is required of you.”

(Check out our NBA Cup predictions)

It will be fascinating to see if Kerr reduces his rotation for the NBA Cup quarterfinals as if he were preparing for the playoffs, because even the Warriors admit they won’t go that far in the postseason. (Their rotation dropped to 10 in the last NBA Cup game against the Denver Nuggets.) And if Kerr finds success with a winnow rotation, the front office will use that as an opportunity to trade multiple assets for a single, better one (i.e .h, Zach LaVine)?

If you’re wondering whether heliocentrism can produce an NBA champion, consider this: No one has ever won a championship with a usage rate higher than 34.7%. Only Michael Jordan has won rings with a usage rate higher than 32.5% – the standard at which Giannis Antetokounmpo won his Larry O’Brien Trophy in 2021. And why am I telling you this?

Well, Luka Dončić, who led the league in three of the last four seasons and used an average of 36.7% of his team’s possessions, has seen his usage rate drop to 32.8% this season. Since November 16, when Dallas began its current streak of 11 wins in 12 games, his fielding rate has dropped to 29.5%, and he hasn’t even played in five of those games. Does he let go of the offense?

And will he tighten it up when the stakes are higher in the NBA Cup quarterfinals? Does he return to the ball-dominant brand he played in the NBA Finals, when he (again) capitalized on 36.7% of the Mavericks’ possessions in their five-game losing streak? This tournament will provide an early glimpse into whether Jason Kidd wants to play differently in his return to the playoffs.

No team has posted a defensive rating lower than 100 since the 2016-17 season, when teams attempted an average of 25 three-pointers per game for the first time. With the exception of OKC allowing less than 100 points per 100 possessions with Chet Holmgren or Isaiah Hartenstein is on the floor.

The Thunder have handled games without one of their rim protectors, outscoring their opponents by eight points per 100 possessions in their absence, on the back of a rabid small-ball team. Imagine how fearsome their defense will be if Mark Daigneault can stagger his big men for a full 48 minutes, occasionally fielding both at the same time. They could be the best defense of this era.

For the remainder of the NBA Cup, they will have to settle solely with Hartenstein as Holmgren recovers from a fractured pelvis. And if they can now prevail in this Western Conference field in a single-elimination tournament, what hope do these teams have of knocking them out of a seven-game series when both Oklahoma City greats solidify their defenses in April?

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