Fri Nov 15 2024

Last season, the Lakers became the first team to win the NBA's in-season tournament. That means this year, they're the first team to try and defend that title. Of course, while the in-season tournament (now the NBA Cup) was a much bigger success than most anticipated, fans certainly remember how much the Lakers struggled following the tournament. It was miserable, in part because LA clearly used a lot of energy to try and win the thing and it took a while to recover. So with their portion of the NBA Cup opening tonight in San Antonio against a quickly improving Spurs team featuring a red hot Victor Wembenyama. But while Friday's game will get the most attention, a very solid argument can be made that Saturday's game in New Orleans is more critical. The Lakers, currently sitting at 7-4 in an extraordinarily crowded Western Conference, can't afford to give any games away. The best teams in the conference will almost certainly dominate against sub-.500 teams. Teams that fall to th...