A new basketball season means everyone’s favorite in-season tournament, the NBA Cup is also soon about to begin.
Los Angeles will begin their NBA Cup journey facing the Grizzlies on the road.
Here’s a look at their four games:
Starting against Ja Morant and the Grizzlies should be a fun game, but the most compelling matchup in the group stage will be between the Lakers and the Mavericks.
The Lakers-Clippers game on NBC will also be entertaining. The two teams are local to LA and with a national stage, that game will undoubtedly have more buzz around it than most regular-season contests this year.
The Pelicans matchup is the least enticing one for the Lakers. With Anthony Davis no longer on the team, there isn’t any rivalry there and New Orleans has been sitting near the bottom of the Western Conference for a while now.
Still, in the NBA Cup, every game matters.
Only the top team in each group will automatically advance to the quarterfinals. The other two wild card spots will go to the team from each conference with the best record in group play games that finished second in their group.
Hopefully, head coach JJ Redick can get the Lakers to perform better this time around and bring the NBA Cup back to Los Angeles where it belongs.