With a 107-95 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday night, the Los Angeles Lakers improved to a league-best 3-0 in the In-Season Tournament. When asked about the tournament after the game, LeBron James stated they know what’s at stake.
“LeBron on In-Season Tournament games: ‘It’s an incentive for sure early in the season. … We understand what’s at stake.'”
LeBron on In-Season Tournament games: "It's an incentive for sure early in the season. … We understand what's at stake."
— Lakers Daily (@LakersDailyCom) November 18, 2023
The Lakers have clearly taken the tournament games more seriously than the regular ones. For all the criticism surrounding this concept, it has made games a bit more enjoyable to watch, as the players know there is something at stake.
We often see them take it easy at the start of the campaign, but with the tournament now in place, there is an incentive to play harder. James certainly gets up for these, and he’s played extremely well in them.
Here against the Trail Blazers, he had 35 points, 5 rebounds, 9 assists, and 2 steals. In their opening game against the Phoenix Suns, the 38-year-old had 32 points, 11 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block.
Sandwiched between them was the game against the Memphis Grizzlies, where in just over 22 minutes, James had 16 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, and a steal.
LeBron James Wants That Prize Money
When the NBA announced that the tournament was being introduced, one of the incentives for the players was the prize money. Every player on the winning team will get $500,000, and while that may seem insignificant for a billionaire like James, he has his eyes set on getting it.
“It feels great because it’s an In-Season Tournament win and we’d take that,” James said after they beat the Suns. “We’d take that for sure. I heard there’s $500,000 on the line, so we’re going for that.”
(starts at 1:36 mark):
Hey, you can never have enough money and LeBron didn’t become a billionaire by passing up on any chance to make some. An extremely motivated LeBron is bad news for the rest of the NBA. He and the Lakers will take on the Utah Jazz in their next tournament game, which will be on November 21.
JJ Redick Says The Team With The Most Sickos Will Win The In-Season Tournament
It’s really hard to predict who is going to win this tournament, as there is no series here. Once we get to the knockouts, it’ll be like the NCAA tournament and anyone could get upset at any point. JJ Redick thinks the team which will ultimately win is the one with the most sickos.
“Whoever ends up winning the In-Season Tournament is probably the team with the most amount of sickos on their team. I mean that,” Redick said. “Like, you don’t need to give Chris Paul a reason to be competitive. He wakes up that way. Some teams and some players are just wired that way. There’s a purpose to everything they do. The NBA weeds out the non-competitive people very quickly. And I think this is another opportunity for the competitive people to rise to the top.”
Redick compared it to the Bubble as well, and we all know who won in the Bubble. The Lakers led by LeBron were the ones most focused on the goal at hand and that might end up being the case here as well.
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