NBA Cup, now the Emirates Cup, originally introduced as the “In-Season Tournament”, first emerged in July 2023. It was seen as a bold attempt by Adam Silver and the NBA to inject fresh energy into the early-season calendar. As Silver put it at the unveiling: “This is a concept that has been rumbling around the league office for about 15 years… it’s a perfect opportunity for a global league like the NBA, and it’s a perfect fit for our game.”

This format pairs group-stage matchups that count toward the regular season. Each team plays four games in November, followed by single-elimination knockout rounds culminating in a championship game in early December. The first-ever match-up was contested in 2023; the Lakers were the champions, but what caught everyone’s eyes was the monetary incentives involved. Not just for players, but for the coaches. For the 2025 edition, the timeline is expected to follow the same rhythm. As the season is about to kick off, are you wondering how much the coaches will get paid?

How much will NBA coaches earn for winning the 2025 NBA Cup?

When the NBA Cup first launched, one of the most significant new wrinkles was extending financial rewards to coaches. According to ESPN, the head coach of the tournament’s winning team gets $500,000, the same bonus already designated for each player. Assistant coaches also share an additional pool worth 75% of the head coach’s total.

Beyond the title, payouts descend with each stage of advancement: $200,000 for the runner-up, $100,000 for semifinalists, and $50,000 for quarterfinalists. This tiered model mirrors the players’ incentive system. It also underscores the NBA’s effort to make the Cup a shared pursuit among every member of a team’s core.

As of now, the league has not released official figures for the 2025 season, but all signs indicate that this payout structure will remain intact. The 2024 edition held steady at those same amounts for both coaches and players. If maintained, it means a head coach could once again earn about half a million dollars, while assistants collectively split around $375,000.

To put that in a clear perspective, few other American sports leagues offer in-season bonuses of this scale. In the NFL, for example, playoff-winning coaches often receive postseason bonuses ranging between $50,000 and $150,000 per game. Super Bowl-winning head coaches typically pocket an additional $250,000-$300,000 on top of their base salary.

Compared to that, the NBA Cup’s $500,000 prize for a single mid-season event is surprisingly rich. It’s nearly equivalent to what an NFL coordinator or MLB bench coach might earn in an entire year. That’s what makes the NBA’s model stand out. The payout bridges performance incentives while rewarding coaches for winning in November and December rather than waiting until June.

Rarely do any other sports give coaches and players equal footing in financial recognition.

How do NBA Cup bonuses compare to playoff and championship bonuses?

The NBA Cup, though, is still in its early years. But its prize money already places it above a traditionally paid coach’s career. To make things clear, the NBA’s postseason bonus pool is roughly $25 million in total. It is distributed across all playoff teams, scaling upward the deeper a team advances.

According to NBA.com, players on a winning team in the NBA Finals can receive around $600,000 each. Against that backdrop, a $500,000 NBA Cup payout in December suddenly feels like a prize that rivals the financial bonus of winning the Larry O’Brien Trophy itself.

Historically, NBA head coaches do not receive standardized playoff bonuses from the league. Those are typically negotiated privately within their team contracts. That’s what makes the Cup’s explicit incentive so unusual. So who could benefit from this?

Assistant coaches often rely heavily on organizational bonuses. As they look for a supplement in modest salaries, do benefit even more directly. As seen in many cases, an NBA Cup win could boost an assistant’s yearly income by 20-30%.

Why does the NBA reward coaches separately in the in-season tournament?

When the NBA Cup was first announced, Commissioner Adam Silver emphasized that the goal was far deeper than creating another mid-season trophy. “Taking a page from European soccer where they play for multiple cups throughout the season … We think taking nothing away from the Larry O’Brien trophy, and the ultimate goal of winning a championship, that you can create another competition within the season that becomes meaningful. And there’s a recognition that new traditions are not built overnight,” Silver said when introducing the concept in 2023.

To make that vision work, the NBA needed backing from every layer of the organization. That’s why the league decided to reward coaches separately. The Cup changed the very dynamic in which the Coaches were getting paid. By offering a league-funded incentive, they made the coaches the stars.

After the success of the league in its first two years since inception, Silver acknowledged that even among the league’s highest earners, the monetary stakes mattered. “Even for those wealthier players, it’s still a lot of money … I’m pleasantly surprised that guys are not dismissing it,” he told NBA.com. For players like LeBron James or Kevin Durant, a $500,000 bonus is just an additional game check.

But the players who are on two-way contracts get $250,000. That obviously provides a massive incentive, amounting to nearly half their salary. And it was a win-win for all. So it was received well.

Lakers coach Darvin Ham, who led his team to the inaugural Cup title, summed it up upon winning, “This tournament isn’t going anywhere, it’s only going to get better. To be the first team to do it, I think it’s awesome. (Winning) The Cup is a big shot in the arm for us.”

Silver himself admitted, “It’s not gonna happen overnight. To create a new tradition may take a bit of time.” Yet the commitment from players and coaches alike suggests that time is exactly what the Cup now has.

When the 2023 NBA In‑Season Tournament kicked off, Darvin Ham was among the first coaches to buy in the value of the new competition to his team: “This is a great source of positive stimuli for us with this group… the continuity and also the heightened awareness because we’re playing the In-Season Tournament. I think everyone being able to have their competitive spirit revealed … it’s a huge shot in the arm for us. Our group needed this and we needed to win this.”

In 2024, the player payout scale was: quarterfinalists $51,497 each, semifinalists $102,994 each, runners-up $205,988 each, and champions $514,971 each. Those figures reflect the league’s 2023–24 payout model and, while the NBA has not officially announced 2025 figures, the league’s messaging and precedent suggest the structure may remain unchanged.