“Ridiculous” - Charles Barkley breaks silence on NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s in-season initiative

The NBA Cup Finals are on December 16, 2025, between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks. While fans are excited about the game, not everyone within the league circuit shares the same opinion on Adam Silver’s in-season initiative. Former legend and NBA sports analyst Charles Barkley is quite dismissive of the in-season tournament. He even used words like “embarrassing” and "ridiculous" while expressing his honest opinions on the format.

The NBA Cup was first announced in 2023 and instantly became a part of that season itself. Commissioner Adam Silver launched the format to keep the interest of both the players and the fans intact during the course of the regular season. Each player from the winning team receives a cash prize. The tournament is divided into stages, with the first one being group play. These performances add to the standing of both the regular season and the NBA Cup tournament. The next stage is the single-elimination knockout rounds.

Charles Barkley expresses his honest yet brutal opinion on Adam Silver’s NBA Cup initiative

While winning teams and players are earning from the tournament, Charles Barkley is not very supportive of the format. During a recent episode of the Tom Tolbert Show, the NBA analyst decided to open up brutally on his thoughts on the ongoing tournament. He stated, “I think the Cup thing is somewhat embarrassing. I’m disappointed that we have to make an in-season tournament to make these guys more money, so they won’t do load management.”


The former NBA legend made it clear that he had nothing against the players making more money. Adding to his comment, Barkley further stated, “To have to pay these guys extra money to make them play other games – they should play basketball because they’re well-compensated to play basketball. To do an in-season tournament to make them extra money, come on, man. That’s a little bit ridiculous.”

NBA Cup: Format, prize pool and everything you need to know

Announced on July 8, 2023, the NBA Cup is an in-season tournament. It is a multi-stage one. The first stage is the group play, where there are 6 groups across both conferences. Each group will have five teams. The teams will play four group stage games and then the winner of each group proceeds to the next stage. The next stage is the single-elimination knockout round. A wild-card team from each conference joins the team in this round. The prize pool of the event is $18+ million. There is also a trophy that the winning team receives. In the 2025-2026 season, the finalists for the NBA Cup are the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks.

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