For its first in-season tournament a season ago, the NBA wanted unique places that would get people talking. They succeeded, but not in the way the league had hoped. With bright colors and what looked like a runway in the middle, the squares were ready to be mocked online.

The second season of the game, now called NBA Cup, begins on November 12th and the special seats are back – but with a few changes that are improvements over version 1.0.

This year's fields “feature three concentric circles radiating from midfield and decorated in the hues of a core team color,” the league said in describing the fields. Designed by artist Victor Solomon, they represent an evolution from last year. The colors are more muted and the midfield features the NBA Cup trophy and the team's logo. According to the league, “court colors will be designed to contrast with the home teams' Nike NBA Statement Edition jerseys, while the away teams will wear Nike NBA Association Edition jerseys.”

The format of the NBA Cup remains the same. The teams have been divided into six groups of five teams each and the group play rounds begin on November 12th, with group games on designated evenings (although all games on that evening will be cup games). The winners of each group plus two wildcard teams advance to an eight-team knockout round in the single-elimination tournament. The final four teams travel to Las Vegas for the NBA Cup Finals.

All games – with the exception of the championship game – also count as NBA regular season games. Any teams that do not advance to the knockout phase will have two games added to their schedule (against other teams that did not advance) to ensure that all teams complete 82 regular season games.

Last year, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers won the first tournament of the seasonand defeated the Indiana Pacers in the championship game.