Adam Silver Floats College Arenas As Possible Venues for Future NBA Cup Championship Games

Could the NBA Cup be headed to campus soon?

Adam Silver spoke about potential NBA Cup changes ahead of Tuesday’s final | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Other than colorful floors, the NBA Cup has become synonymous with Las Vegas over the in-season tournament’s first three years.

Teams who qualify for the semifinal have earned the right to play in Vegas for the Cup championship and the handsome cash prize the title comes with. Ahead of Tuesday night’s NBA Cup final between the Spurs and Knicks, commissioner Adam Silver floated an idea that the tournament may look elsewhere for its finale in future years.

“We’re talking with Amazon Prime about whether it makes sense to maybe go to some unique locations for the final game,” he said Tuesday on the NBA on Prime pregame show. “They have suggested, for example, some storied college arenas so we’re just looking at other ways we can do this.”

Adam Silver says "some storied college locations" are under consideration for future NBA cup championship games pic.twitter.com/qlz9aNpKXL

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Now that’s a fun idea. Imagine the NBA playing one game a year at places like Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium, Kansas’s Allen Fieldhouse or even The Palestra, Penn’s historic gym. The league would have to set some guardrails, because St. John’s home of Madison Square Garden would be cheating.

Silver left the idea open for interpretation as he mentioned the idea of college hosts was a merely a suggestion from Amazon, who will continue to broadcast all games from the knockout rounds of the NBA Cup as part of its new media rights deal. Maybe there’s some additional locales up for debate, but the idea of an NBA Cup final at a premier college gym is certainly a fun possibility.

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