The Athletic has live coverage of the 2025 NBA Cup semifinals.
LAS VEGAS — If the Orlando Magic win the NBA Cup, Desmond Bane is gonna buy himself a boat.
But they’d have to win. Second place or worse won’t do, because the boat Bane wants, a Nautique Paragon, depending on the bells and whistles, starts around $400,000.
“Put a story out on that, see if the price drops,” Bane urged Friday, at media day for the NBA Cup, which continues with two semifinal games Saturday at T-Mobile Arena.
The NBA Cup is in its third season, and a consistent storyline remains: the extra cash on the table for all of the players whose teams reach the quarterfinals. They get $53,093 for getting there, and no more if they lose at that stage (so players on the Miami Heat, Toronto Raptors, Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns all added that much cash to their wallets this week).
The four teams left — Bane’s Magic, the New York Knicks, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs — are all trying to win an additional $477,840 by winning the Cup championship Tuesday.
Bane, who has a country ranch in Texas where he keeps a Malibu M240 speedboat, could buy another one of those with the prize money just by beating the Knicks in the semifinals Saturday. He’d get another $159,000 by advancing to the finals, giving him north of the about $200,000 a higher-end Malibu costs. A loss Saturday and Bane is out of luck; teams that do not advance to the Cup finals get another $53,000 on top of the money they won by reaching the semifinals.
The rout was on early on Wednesday as the @okcthunder rolled up a 49-point win over Phoenix in the NBA Cup Quarterfinals. Jalen Williams, who has 5+ assists in every game he’s played this season, stopped by to talk about the team’s collective rhythm: pic.twitter.com/76yn9G7aI0
— Nick Gallo (@NickAGallo) December 11, 2025
A lot of this discussion is tongue-in-cheek. Bane will earn $36.7 million this season (good for about 91 Paragon boats). There are seven players on the four Cup title contenders who will earn at least $30 million this season, and four more whose contract extensions kick in next year, putting them over that $30 million annual threshold (Orlando’s Paolo Banchero and Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams will all make north of $40 million starting next season).
“Half a million dollars is a lot of money regardless if you make what I make or whatever the case may be,” said Williams, the Thunder star who is in the last year of a contract paying him $6.6 million this year before the five-year, $240.7 million extension he signed over the summer kicks in. “That’s, you know, I mean that’s enough money to like get you going to play hard.”
Prize money has risen each year for the Cup, with total winnings for Cup champion players reaching $530,000 this year. The league minimum salary for rookies on full NBA contracts is $1.6 million, and for veterans with at least 10 years of experience, it’s more than $3.3 million. Players on two-way contracts, which means they split time between the NBA and G League, earn $636,000. For them, a Cup championship would mean doubling their salary.
“J Will (Jaylin Williams) reminds us the exact dollar amount every single day of what it would be to win,” Jalen Williams said of his teammate Jaylin, a role player on the Thunder who is making $8.4 million.
“They’re excited,” said the Knicks’ Mikal Bridges, who will earn $24.9 million this season, of his younger teammates. “Especially the ones who aren’t playing and putting the work in every single day. They’re holding us accountable, make sure we lock in so they can get some money, too.”
The Thunder are Cup semifinalists for the second consecutive year, which means they have experience with playing for — and spending — the extra dough. Oklahoma City reached the Cup finals last year before falling to the Milwaukee Bucks in the championship, which meant each player earned an extra $206,000.
Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said his wife donated the money but didn’t know to whom. His teammate, Luguentz Dort, said he gave some of his winnings to family and friends and the rest to his charitable foundation, the Maizon Dort Foundation, which he said will get the majority of what he wins this week.
“It’s a good position to be in,” Dort said. “We get to play in a tournament like this, and we get a nice reward, so I’m excited.”
The Magic’s Tyus Jones, who is making $7 million this season, said he would invest the prize money. That’s what Jalen Williams said, too, though he acknowledged that was his answer because “my financial team is going to watch” the interview.
Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama, who will return for Saturday’s game against the Thunder after a month out of action with a calf strain, will, this summer, likely sign a max contract extension worth $300 million. Asked whether the prize money was a motivating factor for him in Las Vegas, he cracked, “poor Victor needs more money” in a mocking voice.
“I don’t know what I am going to do with it,” Wemby said. “Stacking money hasn’t been a goal in my life.”
His teammate, promising rookie Dylan Harper, flashed a wide smile when he was asked about the prize money.
“That’s a lot of money,” Harper said, repeating the phrase a second time. Harper, the No. 2 pick in this year’s draft, is making $12.4 million this season.
“Gonna be a good Christmas, I can promise you that,” Harper continued. “I don’t have anything set in stone, but I’m probably gonna do a little shopping, Christmas presents for my family. Might be over the top.
“But, I mean, we’re coming here to win this money.”
